Tag: Chamber of Commerce

2026 Chamber of the Year Finalist-OneSpartanburg Inc. with Allen Smith

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Brandon Burton (00:01.344)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and here on the podcast, I introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. You’re joining us today for a special episode in our 2026 ACCE Chamber of the Year Finalist series. And today we’re joined by Allen Smith, president and CEO of OneSpartanburg Inc.

A native of Greenville, North Carolina, Allen began his career in local government before moving into chamber leadership with the Greenville Pitt County Chamber of Commerce. He later served as president and CEO of the Greater Greer Chamber, where he helped drive financial strength and membership growth. In 2014, Allen since 2014, Allen has led

The Spartanburg organization through major transformation, including the launch of One Spartanburg, Inc., a comprehensive community and economic development strategy designed to build a more vibrant region through business, economic, and tourism development. Allen’s work reflects a deep commitment to community leadership, regional collaboration, and long-term growth for Spartanburg.

Allen, welcome back to Chamber Chat Podcast. First of all, huge congratulations to you and your team for being selected as a Chamber of the Year finalist again. And love to give you an opportunity to say hello to everyone out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can get to know you a little better.

Allen (01:32.771)
Huh.

Well, I appreciate the opportunity to be back. I really do. And I think it’s such a valuable service. And so I’m I’m grateful to you that that you do this and just incredibly grateful to be back in the US Chamber of the Year space again. we won in twenty twenty one. We we haven’t applied since and so we decided, hey, look, we’ve we’ve had a really good run, so let’s let’s put an application together and you know, thanks to our partners, our team and and just a a willing community, here we are again and it’s very humbling.

particularly when you consider, you know, the Greater Des Moines Partnership and the Mobile Chamber of Commerce. They’re other they’re the other two finalists. So we find ourselves in in very good and elite company. So delighted to be with you today.

Brandon Burton (02:16.453)
Absolutely. Yes, we need that.

Allen (02:16.713)
interesting. Interesting. So that that’s that’s where I have to really think because I think any of our chamber leaders that are listening, there’s not a lot of time for interesting things or or hobbies in this space, particularly when you have two two young daughters. And so

I’m girl dad, I guess that’s the interesting thing about me. I’m all in. Painted toenails, painted fingernails. If they wanna do it, they wanna fix my hair, they wanna put makeup on, I’m I’m all in. Life is short, you know, time’s fleeting and you know, I I would rather my hobby be them than than something without them.

Brandon Burton (02:42.292)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (02:55.776)
Yeah, I love that. And that means they’re doing it right. So awesome.

Allen (02:59.799)
Trying. Every day it’s a learning process. And and when I get it wrong, they will they will tell me. That’s right.

Brandon Burton (03:02.616)
They’ll let you know. That’s right. well, for those listening, help help us understand one Spartan Burg geek. Help us understand the the organization, the scope of work you’re involved with, staff, budget, just to kind of set the stage for our discussion today.

Allen (03:22.413)
Sure, we well, you alluded to it earlier in in the bio. So in September of 2020, we took our countywide chamber, countywide economic development, countywide tourism, and consolidated it all into one organization. In fact, we renovated the whole building with that consolidation in mind. So it’s it’s one of the few places in the country where a chamber specialist or chamber expert is sitting right next to an economic development expert. So you might have somebody championing

Small business sitting right next to someone that’s working on tourism. And then about 18 months ago, we said we need to make talent our fourth vertical as well. So business, economic, tourism, and talent development all under the same umbrella. We’re about 33 FTEs, about seven tens, including our foundation. We’re coming up on a

Of $10 million. Incredibly blessed to be in this community, the third fastest growing MSA in the country. 29 people a day are moving to Spartanburg County. That’s about 10,600 net new residents a year. So it’s an exciting time to be in Spartanburg County. Obviously, growth comes with some challenges as well. But I will take those problems over the alternative. So again, just very blessed to be here in

Brandon Burton (04:40.802)
Yeah.

Allen (04:47.482)
this community and and and particularly under this model. I I really can’t imagine doing it any any differently than the way we do it here now that we’ve we’ve been under this umbrella now for six years.

Brandon Burton (05:01.878)
Yeah.

So I mentioned before we hit record that a couple weeks ago I had Matt Pavarnik on the show at Myrtle Beach and talked about the new collaborative that they formed there in Myrtle Beach, and he referenced One Spartan Burg Inc. a couple of times in that episode. obviously hold you guys in high regard with the model that you have. And it it’s something for the right communities to look at and and see how you guys are executing and bringing everything together and having that that synergy and focus.

is to help further further develop your community. So you guys are you’re doing something right there.

Allen (05:39.608)
Well I appreciate that and appreciate Matt’s kind words as well. We are we are so happy that he’s in the state of South Carolina.

Brandon Burton (05:46.743)
Yeah. well on these Chamber of the Year episodes, what I like to do is spend the majority of our time talking about the programs that you guys submitted on your Chamber of the Year application. So we’ll take a quick break and when we get back we’ll dive into those programs and learn more about the impact you guys are driving there in Spartanburg.

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Alright Allen we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re gonna dive into the programs that you submitted on your Chamber of the Year application. if you would just give us an idea what those what those programs are and then we can dive into them in a little bit more detail.

Allen (06:21.858)
Well, you know, it’s it’s interesting. I our vision plan one point zero, which is a five year community and economic development strategy, two point zero, which was a five year community economic development strategy. Now we’re developing three point zero, which is a five year community and economic development strategy. So 15 years when we’re done with three point zero. And it is eerie how well it aligns with the Horizons initiative. and when you look at redegree and and power up and edge, all three of those programs, I I

Brandon Burton (06:45.121)
Yeah.

Allen (06:51.792)
Align quite well with the industry’s vision for the industry, and then of course with our vision plan. And so, first, redegree. So, we have economic development house here as we spoke about. One of the things that we need to do in Spartanburg is diversify our economic development approach. Our our bread and butter is advanced manufacturing, but if you want to diversify your economic development approach, you need to raise your education attainment levels. And so the quickest way to do that is to engage those people.

That have some college and no degree. And we’ve discovered there’s about 55,000 people that started their higher ed pursuit and life got in the way. Somebody got sick in the family, there was a financial hardship, whatever it may be, they had to stop and they never really went back.

And that’s sad, but you can reverse that story and that’s what Redegree is doing. So thanks to a partnership with the Spartanburg Academic Movement and Movement Twenty Thirty, we launched Redegree less than three years ago and the scale has been tremendous. I say less than three years, it’s actually been two years and two months.

1,703 people are have inquired about redegree, but most importantly, five hundred and two individuals have re-enrolled, and seventy four have graduated either with a credential, associate’s degree, or a bachelor’s degree. And again, that’s a very short amount of time. we believe that we’re really hitting scale. And so we think about in any community, if five hundred new

Brandon Burton (08:30.974)
Yeah, that’s a funny.

Allen (08:35.562)
People were going back to college, that would be like adding a small institution in your community and having a freshman a freshman class. And so that skill, we also know that this population, if left to their own devices, has a 2% chance of returning to college. So if you’re doing if you’re doing that math, you know, 1700 people that have started the process and 500 have re-enrolled, you know, we’re all over 30% of

Brandon Burton (08:41.559)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (08:55.34)
Wow.

Allen (09:05.442)
Actually re-enrolling. So that tells us that our interventions, our hand holding, we’re getting people across the line to re-enroll. And so that’s redegree. Under talent is Edge, which is our work-based learning program. We’ve engaged more than 120 employers. and since this thing kicked off two years ago, we’ve created 1,041 work-based learning opportunities. And that’s the new fancy way to say internships. but we believe that that’s in

Brandon Burton (09:10.657)
Yeah.

Allen (09:35.265)
incredibly important with seven institutions of higher learning. If we can ignite something in a junior or senior high school student and they can find applicable program here locally, we have a really good shot of keeping them. You know, if you’ve got that job at the end of the educational pursuit, you’re more much more likely to stay in the community. So delighted with the scale the edge has produced in a really short amount of time. And then power up power up

Brandon Burton (09:38.388)
Yeah.

Allen (10:05.218)
Was launched in April of 2023. We got some data through our visioning process. It wasn’t too good. Small businesses were not starting and growing at a rate comparable to our peers or on a national average. Furthermore, black-owned businesses were starting and growing at about half the national average, which sadly is a case all across South Carolina. And so, you know, chambers forever have been supposed.

Brandon Burton (10:29.496)
Allen (10:35.088)
Supporting small businesses, but we really wanted to do something differentiating and skilled. You know, not having a program where twelve or fifteen businesses went through it, give them a plaque, have a banquet, and celebrate what we’ve done to help small businesses. We really needed scale. And so we went to the county, and fortunately, the county had just gotten American Rescue Plan dollars. And they said, We believe this. We’re the best in the nation at recruiting big businesses. Our levels of investment indicate as much. But we want to be the best at starting and growing small businesses as

Brandon Burton (10:38.648)
Right.

Brandon Burton (10:57.832)
That’s right.

Brandon Burton (11:02.488)
Well,

Allen (11:05.038)
Well, so they entrusted us with a $6.5 million grant. we put our own resources with it, and since April of 2023, 2,538 small businesses have filled out intake forms. 66% have engaged, which means they have taken advantage of two or more of our offerings. And let me speak to our offerings. in three years, we’ve deployed $4.1 million dollars of grants and loans.

Brandon Burton (11:13.662)
Yeah, yeah.

Allen (11:34.881)
In the community. Talk about these are like 3.9% type products. So beating beating the private sector, these businesses would not be able to get that product in the private sector. 56 new small businesses have started. The small businesses we’ve been working with have created 234 new jobs. And this one’s a big one. We have been very successful at recruiting.

Brandon Burton (11:42.017)
Yeah.

Allen (12:04.844)
big businesses, but we would hear it all the time. Small businesses would come to us and say, hey, we want to do business with Corey Dr. Pepper. You know, we want to do business with Hintech. We want to do business with BMW Plant Spartanburg. But when you begin to unpack to them what that really requires and what they need to do, they are not even close to being ready. So what we did is we hired the recently retired supplier readiness person at BMW Plant Spartanburg and she has been helping small businesses

Get ready to do business with big business. And results are off the chart. So in three years, she’s helped small businesses secure $15.1 million in contracts with these big businesses. And so this whole power-up movement really is just starting, three years old, a whole team dedicated to that. So we’re very it’s excited about the potential that that power up brings.

Brandon Burton (12:38.7)
But

Allen (13:04.834)
small businesses all across all across Spartanburg County. We’ve actually had two hundred and there it is, fourteen hundred inquiries from twenty five states of small businesses that wanted to take advantage of power up and we had to say, you are welcome to do that, but you got to move to Spartanburg County.

Brandon Burton (13:12.696)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (13:16.824)
Well

Brandon Burton (13:25.156)
That’s right. I love that. And man, what an impact. I think you said fifteen point one million in contracts to new local businesses there. And being able to have that money stay in the community versus going, you know, somewhere out of state or maybe overseas for some of those contracts. Who knows where they were fulfilling those contracts before? But that’s a that’s a huge impact in the community. And I love that with each one of these examples.

you have the numbers down to the exact number of businesses that inquired, new businesses that have started, the number of internships that I forgot what the new fancy word was for the internships, but the number of internships that were started or created and and the number of people with the the re-degree. So I’m curious how

how you went about finding the information for redegree to be able to see how many people there were in the community that had some college but not a degree associated with it. Where were you able to look for that that information and and pull that data together?

Allen (14:32.984)
Well, first of all, a a little a little tip, I guess if they wanna call it a tip, maybe it isn’t, but I I believe it is and I always talk to our team about this. You know, you mentioned specific numbers. Well, you know, one of my pet peeves is when somebody says, More than one thousand or over five hundred, you you don’t you don’t seem very credible. And so I tell our team all the time, like, five eight.

Brandon Burton (14:45.121)
Yes.

Brandon Burton (14:51.138)
Yeah.

Allen (14:58.496)
One thousand two hundred and eleven. Like I mean that that shows the hey we’re we’re real time we’re tracking this. So I I just I think you have so much credibility when you use the exact number. So thank thanks for pointing that out. We identified the the redegree number through a talent gap analysis with Lightcast. and we’ve done a talent gap analysis now every two years. they’re not cheap but but they’re well worth it because the talent market in your community is literally changing.

monthly. And so, you know, how can you come up with programs? How can you develop things like edge and redegree if if you really don’t know what the needs are, the opportunities are, the gaps are, so on and so forth. And so one of the things that they pointed out is, hey, you know, you got you if you’re trying to raise education attainment quickly, you got fifty five thousand people that already have some credits in their back pocket. that’s that’s the audience that that you need to be reaching.

Yeah.

Brandon Burton (16:00.183)
So I’m gonna go back to again with the the specifics that you shared. it it goes to tell the story too of the chamber and the impact that you’re making. When you can say that there’s been seventy-four graduates that have completed a a degree through the redegree program.

Those are households that are being changed. It’s life changing to be able to have a degree, to be able to further your career, to change the economic s situation for the families, and to be able to tie dollar amounts back to whether it’s the number of you know contracts that are being brought back through the power up program, it really shows that, you know, without the chamber, what would the community be like?

If if if one Spartanberg Inc. wasn’t there, it would be a huge void and you guys are making a huge impact. So I th the specifics and being able to show that direct impact are are huge. what are we missing with these three programs? I know, I mean, you you hit high level and I know you know you can

probably talk for an hour each on both of these, but what are some of those things that that really stand out as far as the the differences being made and the impact that you’re seeing through these programs?

Allen (17:21.272)
You know, we did we didn’t even speak on and because we didn’t include this as as part of our application and ma you know, maybe we should have, but but last year was a record year for us in terms of new investment, three point five billion dollars in new investment, one thousand one hundred and twenty four new jobs. So, you know, you talk about impacting people and families, one thousand one hundred and twenty four new jobs is is a good is a good measure of that. you know, another another

metric related to power up was our access to space initiative. And that’s not like NASA or going up in space. This is actually action access to physical yeah on the ground physical space. So you know all across America, you know, there’s different municipalities that have boarded up storefronts and and so on and so forth. And and so our access to space initiative, we engaged and again this one’s relatively new, but we engaged

Brandon Burton (18:00.994)
On the ground. Yeah.

Allen (18:21.082)
A lot of those landlords, and we said, hey, look, if if we were to get you a promising tenant and subsidized their lease for six months and then scale it down from seven to twelve, you know, would you be willing to upfit your building? and we’ve had great success in that regard.

Place 12 small businesses in storefronts that quite frankly have been idle for years. And so we see that gaining some steam as well. We’re about we’re about to build a little incubator village at the start of one of our trails in downtown. So think cargo containers with promising small businesses in it, and it’ll be programmed so you know with music and all kinds of different events, so people will be.

Brandon Burton (19:04.002)
Okay.

Allen (19:11.704)
driven to it. So access to space is is just a part of the the general overall offerings of Power Up Spartanbird.

Brandon Burton (19:23.072)
Yeah. I love that idea. The the whole access to space a while back I had a guest on the show and we talked about doing empty building tours to be able to get people out and

visualize the space in some of these empty buildings and but the approach that you’re taking, going directly to the landlord and saying, We can bring somebody to you, if you can make the building something that that could be worthwhile to to host a business in here, we can help make sure that, you know, you’re getting paid, you’re getting your rent and helping to to make that transition, I think, is a very smart way.

Allen (19:55.853)
Yeah, I I tell you y you mentioned people, real people and and and and stories and this is a great story. Puddin, P U D D apostrophe N. this is a guy that had a pudding business, all kinds of different flavors and there was a storefront that that hadn’t seen a tenant in years and it was is literally contiguous to

a a railroad that went right across the main street in one of our smaller towns and the train always, every day clogs traffic, you know, for twenty, twenty five minutes and so we talked to him about this space and I said, You you know, you worry about the the train? He said, No. He had a whole plan for when the cars get backed up by the train, they’ll have somebody out there in the puddin, you know, uniform with order forms, you know, basically cap

Brandon Burton (20:48.63)
Yeah.

Allen (20:49.75)
Customers. So I love that approach and I’m I’m glad we were able to activate that space in Duncan, South Carolina.

Brandon Burton (20:57.484)
That’s awesome. That’s like it’s just like a drive-thru line, right? You just go out and take your order like you’re at Chick-fil-A or something. So Yeah. That’s right. That’s right. I love that example. so what I I like asking on behalf of those listening who are interested in taking their organization up to the next level.

Allen (21:04.258)
Well, but and you didn’t choose to be there. So you’re you’re captive.

Brandon Burton (21:23.414)
What kind of tip or action item might you share with them as they strive to accomplish that goal?

Allen (21:29.676)
Well, I’m humbled that you would ask that question. I mean, we we’ve got a long way to go here, but I I’ve learned I think the difference between good organizations and great organizations in our industry are those that have left activity and moved to performance. You know, we’re not we don’t we don’t well we don’t even have a golf tournament.

we’re not talking about attendance at last month’s event was up. You know, we’re not saying we have more golf tournament sponsors and things like that. That’s those are activities that support the organization, which are important, but you you need to move to performance metrics that support the community. And you know, I I you know, we have that conversation all the time in this building, you know, w

I is this initiative really about, you know, supporting our organization or is this really about supporting our community and the people that live in it and the businesses that are hoping to thrive here? And I understand, you know, you gotta put you gotta put fuel in the tank, you gotta have gas in the car, you gotta drive revenue, understand all those things. but but less of this and more of that and the revenue will come.

Brandon Burton (22:43.446)
Yeah. In fact I just last week did a presentation on that very thing at a chamber conference and we talked about those events and programs often they can be that b to using the engine analogy, kinda like the pull string, you know, think of the lawnmower, i it’s that that initial effort, but then after that you have to show your value, you have to be able to tell the story what the chamber’s doing, drive the impact, and the revenue comes, the sponsorship comes, all those things come.

But like you said, less of less of those things and more of those impactful things that are gonna really make a difference. So I love that you put that out there. I like to ask everyone I have on the show as well about your outlo outlook for the future of Chambers. How do you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward?

Allen (23:19.426)
That’s right.

Allen (23:34.595)
That’s a great question. because it’s

We’re in this rapid time of of change and you know, I can I can speak on behalf of of this organization and I and I know that this is the case across the country. You know, those of us in in high growth areas, you know, it’s it’s become very challenging because, you know, you’re viewed it’s a perception it’s not true, but you’re you’re viewed a as the entity driving all the growth and growth is bad.

And so it’s just interesting. Yeah, well exactly. And, you know, in in the book of Revel Revel Revelations it talks about what’s up is down, what’s down is up. And these days seem that way sometimes when you’re when you’re literally

Brandon Burton (24:10.328)
Until it’s not happening. Yeah.

Allen (24:24.946)
defending the creation of jobs. so it it’s a challenging time to to be in this industry, but I think that also speaks to the essential nature of what we do as well. I mean, we we serve the people whether they know it or not. I mean there are thousands, literally thousands of people in our communities that benefit from the work they do, whether they they like us or not, or whether they

know that our work has benefited.

them and their families. I think also think the future of chambers, particularly the standalone ones that don’t have, you know, maybe they don’t have economic development or tourism, it’s in advocacy. I really believe that’s where their relevancy is because you’re in a unique space. You know, if you’re not going to be the voice of business and then who is? And that can be pretty scary because taking a position on an issue is going to win you some friends and it’s going to win you some enemies. But progress never comes without criticism.

criticism and so you can’t be afraid, you know, to get in that space. at the end of the day, you’re the business business community’s only hope. And that’s the way that’s the way I I look at it. You know, I have a I have a little poster that says three hundred and eighty one thousand.

That’s the population of Spartanburg County. That’s I have 381,000 reasons to to do what I do, and and our team thinks about it the the same way. And so, you know, it’s gonna change, the work’s gonna ebb and flow, the external conditions will change, but the essential nature of our organizations I think will remain a constant.

Brandon Burton (26:08.472)
Well, to your point, when you’re helping to spark the the ideas for two thousand five hundred and thirty eight businesses and help stand up fifty six new small businesses and create two hundred and thirty four new jobs and help connect fifteen point one million in contracts with some of these bigger companies. I would argue that

lot of the people in the community don’t know the role that the chamber has to do with that, but it’s driving income into their homes, into their households, it’s creating jobs, it’s providing a lifestyle for them that they wouldn’t have otherwise. So you guys are are making a huge impact, whether or not the average person in the community knows it. But I I think that’s a a great, great response to the future of chambers and need to be driving that growth and in employment.

Helen, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect and learn more about how you guys are doing things there at One Spartan Berg Inc., where would you point them and what would be the best way to connect?

Allen (27:18.158)
Sure. we and again I I’m happy to help. We we don’t have all the answers, but if someone reaches out, maybe we can figure it out together. my email address is asmith@onespartanburginc.com. That’s onespartanburginc.com, not the number. and my phone number is 252-327-0069 and I welcome any feedback, questions, comments, be great.

Brandon Burton (27:48.96)
That’s perfect. We’ll get it all in our show notes and make it easy to connect. But this has been great having you back on the show for those interested in going back and checking out some of the previous episodes.

Allen was on back in episode 136 as a Chamber of the Year finalist when they won Chamber of the Year in in 2021, and also back in episode 107, so back in the early days of the podcast. But he always brings great value to the show. So it’s been a pleasure having you back on today. Thank you for setting aside some time and sharing these great programs and impact that you guys are driving there in the Spartanburg area. Appreciate it.

Allen (28:26.676)
Absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity. And I and I hope I’ve improved each time. I d I don’t know, the jury may still be out.

Brandon Burton (28:31.992)
Leave it to the listeners to find out.

Allen (28:36.78)
That’s right.

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2026 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Murray-Calloway County Chamber with Michelle Bundren

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Brandon Burton (00:01.026)
Hello, Chamber Champions! Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and here on the podcast, I introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2026 ACCE Chamber of the Year finalist series. And today we’re joined by Michelle Bundren, President and CEO of the Murray-Calloway County Chamber.

Michelle is a respected chamber leader with more than 11 years of experience in the industry and a strong background in business management. Michelle made history as the first female president and CEO in her organization’s 99 year history. Her leadership has earned national recognition, including ACCE certified chamber executive designation, a distinction held by only a small percentage of chamber professionals nationwide, as well as a four star accreditation.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She’s helped lead the award-winning chamber work, including bringing home ACCE’s National Chamber of the Year honor in 2019 and continues to invest in leadership, workforce development, education, and regional collaboration across Kentucky and beyond. But Michelle, I’m excited to have you back on Chamber Chat Podcast, especially under these circumstances. It’s very exciting and big congratulations to you and you and your team.

But I wanted to give you an opportunity to say hello to everybody and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

MIchelle Bundren (01:34.558)
Sure. Well thank you so much for having me back. Obviously we’re we’re really excited to be a finalist again. it’s been what six years. so it’s been a fun and exciting s you know, six years since then. I think just interestingly, I’ve been married for twenty-two years. my husband and I both graduated from Murray State University. We have three children, fixing to be a senior in high school, which is an interesting time.

Brandon Burton (02:04.92)
Yeah.

MIchelle Bundren (02:04.991)
and have a fourteen and twelve year old. So we have teenagers in our house. So I not only do you know work, but obviously that’s a full time job in itself as well. So that’s my season of life. We’re busy with them and we have two miniature dachshunds. We’re huge dog lovers. so we we we stay busy, what can I say?

Brandon Burton (02:25.986)
That’s right. That’s right. I’d forgotten how close our our kids line up pretty closely. We just had one graduate and and we’ve got a a twelve and thirteen year olds so that are still at home. But very good. Well tell us a little bit about your chamber, give us an idea of the size, staff, scope of work you guys are involved with, budget, just kind of set the stage for what you guys are doing today.

MIchelle Bundren (02:54.157)
We are in the far western part of the state of Kentucky. So if you look at us on a map, think far west Kentucky, down in the corner. Our population is about 40,000 in the county. We are anchored with Murray State University, which has made some national headlines over the years with players like Jaw Morant, who’s now in the NBA. And then last year our baseball team made it to the College World Series. So we loved being on the national on the national stage.

Through sports a couple times. Our chamber, we have about 450 chamber members. We represent about 12,000 employees through through that count of businesses. We have three full-time staff and average around a $350,000 to $400,000 budget annually. So Murray, Kentucky itself has been named friendly small town in America, and we were just recently named for

friendliest small college town in America. So we have a lot of national attention for being a small friendly town. and so the chamber’s really excited now to be putting ourselves back again on that national stage.

Brandon Burton (04:08.605)
That’s cool. I love all those opportunities to be able to be on the national stage and be like, that’s us, that’s our town. That’s cool. That is very cool.

MIchelle Bundren (04:15.495)
Yeah, we’re excited. Yeah.

Brandon Burton (04:20.28)
For those listening, if you’re curious and going back in time and and checking out the first episode we did with Michelle, it was actually episode thirty-three as a a Chamber of the Year finalist in twenty nineteen. So that that may be interesting to go back and look at. That was the first year that I did these interviews as the Chamber of the Year finalist. So yeah, come a long ways.

MIchelle Bundren (04:40.399)
okay.

Brandon Burton (04:45.612)
So with these episodes, I like to spend the majority of the time talking about the programs that are submitted on the various chambers applications for Chamber of the Year. So we’ll take a quick break and when we get back, we’ll dive into that and learn more about the impactful work you guys are involved with.

Brandon Burton (05:04.35)
All right, we are back. As I mentioned before the break, we’ll dive into the program that you guys submitted on your Chamber of the Year application. if you could tell us what what the program is, kind of where the I always like knowing the origins and of course the impact that it’s making in your community.

MIchelle Bundren (05:24.613)
Well, you know, in twenty twenty one we just got through COVID, which was fine. You know, we we won in twenty nineteen, we’re on a high and then twenty twenty and twenty twenty one kinda just took everybody. Yeah.

Brandon Burton (05:29.037)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (05:35.394)
Flat line. Yeah.

MIchelle Bundren (05:37.746)
We realized through those two years that we really weren’t able to help small businesses as much as we’d hoped because we didn’t have a foundation, we didn’t have a five one C three arm to support with other things and ways. so we created it and kind of put the paperwork in motion in twenty one and really started it in twenty twenty two.

Brandon Burton (05:46.99)
Okay.

MIchelle Bundren (06:00.05)
The last two years though we’ve really seen a growth in investments from businesses, really convening people around the table on workforce programs and solutions, and really seeing an excitement around some of our workforce programs. so our synopsis that we put in was about our foundation and the work that we’re doing through the foundation, which is our five one seed three arm. And we decided that our mission starting out with that interest to introduce and educate students.

Brandon Burton (06:26.494)
Right.

MIchelle Bundren (06:30.203)
On opportunities they have to stay local if they decide to have a career here in our region, primarily in our county and city. So that’s what we did. It’s some low-hanging fruit programs of particular that would really help get students to know more about what opportunities are available here. We had some great chambers across Kentucky to be great mentors to us, you know, larger chambers.

Brandon Burton (06:50.592)
Yeah.

MIchelle Bundren (06:59.913)
larger resources we got for them and kind of hear what they were doing and we started for eighth grade career exploration with them called Spark because we wanted to spark a career interest in a student maybe and how to make it stay here local. We introduced that to two school districts. Now we have four school districts attending it’s over 500 students that are involved in coming and we have over 30 businesses about 40 businesses sitting up with about

Brandon Burton (07:00.814)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Brandon Burton (07:13.686)
Yeah.

We should have some.

MIchelle Bundren (07:29.843)
90 plus experiences that they can get introduced to career opportunities happening here in our region. We also started a teacher externship program, which is called Lyft Leadership Initiative for Teachers. We take teachers from each school district, we have two here, and put them through an externship program where it helps them get resources they need and connections they need with businesses. And then we help them better be better prepared to go back in the classroom.

Brandon Burton (07:40.43)
Well very much the actual eighth one.

MIchelle Bundren (07:59.716)
To prepare their students for careers in the future. We’ve seen some amazing conversations come out of that. one of them connected to the hospital and has now created this program and shadowing with some of their students and class, you know, their classes can go to the hospital and it’s really created a great partnership that they never would have had without the connection that we helped create through that program. and then, you know, there was partnership on a with our university on a kind of

Brandon Burton (08:25.275)
Yeah, okay.

MIchelle Bundren (08:29.609)
Of an after-school program for females interested in engineering. That was all an exciting idea that came out of the class that’s now coming to fruition. That we just really helped connect the people and then got out of the way and let them create kind of those connections and furthering students’ opportunities. So that’s some of the exciting outcomes. And then even just through our Spark, one of our school districts only had 10 to 15 students going into our area technology center, which is where they learn about trades, electrical.

Brandon Burton (08:45.688)
Mm.

MIchelle Bundren (08:59.559)
plumbing, welding, things like that. After our program, the year the next year they had over a hundred students enrolled in the program, you know, from ten to thirteen. so we’re really educating and introducing students to those opportunities. We’ve been seniors, high school seniors, we reach about four hundred of those a year, getting them ready for the jobs that they could get in May in May if they don’t know kind of what their career path is. So we’ve had lots of successful programs. I only see them growing

Brandon Burton (09:04.436)
Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

MIchelle Bundren (09:29.679)
And our investors have grown the past two years. We had just a handful, and now we have, you know, probably twenty-five investors and people around the table helping us make these decisions. So it’s been very exciting and been something I’m very passionate about the last couple years.

Brandon Burton (09:43.567)
I love that. So I I was gonna come back to that and ask about the the funding side of the foundation because as you notice through COVID, the impact that a foundation can have and if you’re positioned right to be able to deploy those funds in the community. so aside from grants, are you I I assume you’re you’re going after grants for some of this as well. but what’s the positioning like for the

to try to find the funding to get people to invest in the workforce development throughout your county.

MIchelle Bundren (10:19.067)
We actually have had no grants so far. This is all Yeah. It’s all been funded through business local business leaders. You know, we really convened them to the table to hear what their issues were. It was, you know, we don’t feel like students are prepared for the jobs that we, you know, have. And then we convened with the schools and it was like, What are you seeing? and really brought both to the table. we meet about once a quarter now, bringing just various industries together.

Brandon Burton (10:22.277)
really? Okay. Very cool.

MIchelle Bundren (10:49.589)
And really they’ve all stepped up to invest. we raise about fifty thousand plus annually through them currently to manage and kind of organize our programs. Plus we have sponsors, additional sponsors that help lead the different programs as well. So we’re running a pretty strong budget so far to to do these kind of year over year. Yes, we’ll be looking at grant opportunities to really increase our programming and really help us be more.

profitable right now kind of just funding the work that we do currently but they’ve all are invested and eager to help go get other businesses involved because we really have shown them and the return on investment that they really are getting work done for the money that they’re putting in and it’s impactful to the students. So that’s been very exciting.

Brandon Burton (11:21.229)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (11:44.151)
Yeah, no, that is that’s great that you haven’t had to go after grants yet, but obviously opportunities there. so you have these investors that invest in the foundation, but then you mentioned with each actual event you have individual sponsors that help make those events come together. So th there’s additional funding that comes into that. So that’s great. so you you talked about gathering them together at the table from

MIchelle Bundren (11:48.039)
Not yet.

Brandon Burton (12:13.826)
the different employment sectors in the schools. So I’m c I’m always curious from the schools. Who are you getting? Is it the superintendent? Is it those who are involved with writing the curriculum for the schools? certain teachers, how how do you go about getting that side to come to the table?

MIchelle Bundren (12:32.935)
So we c first convened our guidance counselors and ’cause you know, businesses were saying students aren’t prepared. So we went to the schools and said, Hey, businesses are saying students aren’t prepared you know, to which they would say we are preparing them.

Brandon Burton (12:40.973)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (12:49.041)
Right.

MIchelle Bundren (12:49.437)
So we created sort of what we call a roadmap. Okay, where K through twelve are they receiving some kind of workforce connection or education? And so we looked to see where those holes were. That meeting was with guidance counselors. So we saw eighth grade was a great opportunity, juniors and seniors were a great opportunity. and then our teacher program really hits K through twelve. so those were kind of how we figured out the strategy of programs and initiatives.

And where to hit. Our board for our foundation is made up of the assistant superintendent at one school district, and they’re very much involved in the curriculum. Actually, I got an email last week asking them to for us to come look at a new software program and curriculum they’re looking at because there’s a whole engagement on business community resources, and they want us at the table in that conversation. So that’s been encouraging. So, yes, we discussed current.

Brandon Burton (13:43.798)
That’s awesome.

MIchelle Bundren (13:49.321)
curriculum. They went with us on our DC fly in last year to meet with the US Chamber. We’re very impressed by

they have a four chambers, you know, for education partnerships. and our superintendent and our assistant superintendent went on that trip. So th that’s who’s at the table when it comes to the to the school district. So that’s been really great to have the leadership at the top adjusting and knowing what’s going on throughout the schools.

Brandon Burton (14:04.362)
Yeah,

Brandon Burton (14:22.018)
So you had mentioned one of these programs that has come out through the foundation was this teacher externship. I d I find that to be very curious. I’d like to learn more about what that looks like and how you get the teachers in the businesses and what the how is that structured.

MIchelle Bundren (14:39.027)
we met with a couple teachers who were a little bit jealous of our leadership program. You know, they couldn’t come to stuff because it’s kind of during the day. And you know, we heard from them, you know, we would love something similar. And then we’d heard from the business, you know, and this kind of foundation board, you know, we need to reach kids. And so we were like, well, why don’t we create a teacher program? we looked at some other models and the teacher externship we created was basically they apply and we took

Brandon Burton (14:46.166)
Yeah.

MIchelle Bundren (15:08.681)
Take you know, several the same amount from each school district. And K through twelve industry, any kind of subject matter.

And the sponsorship covers the substitute teacher for the day so that the school district doesn’t have to worry about that. and then all the program materials and the transportation and all that is raised through sponsorships. so the businesses are engaged. At the end of it, we have a business education round table where we talk about what they learned and then get feedback from both. but basically it’s five sessions. We do an initial session to get to know them and talk about the resources and things.

things that they need to get out of the program. And then we connect them throughout the next few months to businesses. We take them to our manufacturers, we take them to the hospital, we take them to different industry sectors. And and the conversation is careers. what all careers are available, what talents and passions do they need to help connect their students, you know, with the interests that maybe, you know, they have of that talent. and so that’s kind of how we structured it.

Brandon Burton (15:50.99)
Yeah, so

MIchelle Bundren (16:17.553)
And then the substitute teacher thing has been critical because it’s already hard for the already. so the fact that we help the sponsorship help study that it’s been really

Brandon Burton (16:20.078)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (16:27.625)
Yeah, I could see that being a little bit of friction of well, who’s gonna cover for me when I’m gone, right? but I also wondered if if it might take place during the summer sometime or you know, but they probably want to do it when they’re being paid. I don’t know, there’s all the different nuances to it, but

MIchelle Bundren (16:30.734)
Yes.

MIchelle Bundren (16:45.051)
We kinda line it up with our business series with our chamber. So they attend our our lunches. you know, they get to meet and hear from and those and then they elect a class leader. So when they graduate, it’ll be that last

Brandon Burton (16:48.365)
Yeah.

MIchelle Bundren (16:58.339)
I think it’s our November lunch. They s we have a class person come and speak and talk about their experience and what they learned and we give certificates and and all that. So we really have tried to give them that platform at even our chamber events to get their voice because they want to feel heard, you know, as educators. Sometimes they feel tucked in the classroom and they are key leaders in our community and and the chamber’s really been able to bring them out and help them get the exposure and attention they need.

Brandon Burton (17:25.804)
Yeah. And I assume that the the end outcome is having them promote these different job opportunities throughout the community to their students in the classroom. So as they talk about the things that they learned, what kind of things are they sharing that they take back to the classroom or what what are some of their takeaways?

MIchelle Bundren (17:47.058)
Sure. So a lot of the students really kind of know what their parents do. You know, so taking the teachers to the manufacturing facility, for example, and hearing that, you know, maybe they hear from their students that mom and dad work on the line or, you know, whatever, they don’t know that there’s a whole administrative team or a whole HR team or logistics team. so what they’re hearing from our businesses is and even in healthcare, you know, there’s a whole administrative side to it. There’s you don’t have to

Be a doctor, there’s nurses, and then there’s radiology, and there’s all these different skill levels and jobs out there that the teachers themselves didn’t even know exist. and so if they go out of the classroom and actually experience it and hear from it, they leave with connections and resources for the students. Maybe there’s internship or job shadowing opportunities that now they know about and have seen and heard and have the connection to the HR manager or whatever, they can now go back in and help their students connect.

To those opportunities and connect to those businesses. We’ve seen a lot of success. I know our next step will definitely be connecting more job shadowing opportunities, which will be critical to have the teachers and the schools involved in that. But that’s some of the things that we’ve heard is, you know, you know, they don’t have the resources or know who to contact sometimes to bring in guest speakers to their classroom. And now they’ve said they have a lot of people, business, you know, now that we’ve created that connection, they have those expertise.

Experts coming into their classroom, or they’re creating their own kind of externship with their students where they’re taking a handful who are maybe interested in healthcare and now connecting them to the radiology department. I say that because that’s one particular area of need we have here in Murray is radiology. Now you see the scholarship opportunities that maybe the the students see.

Brandon Burton (19:33.838)
Yeah.

MIchelle Bundren (19:46.784)
didn’t know about and now this the teachers have all that information that they can bring back in the classroom to help one on one champion their students to pick a career path that’s perfect or the best fit for them. and so that’s been a a huge outcome for us is just having people they respect and love, the teachers, be a role model for them in kind of shaping their future.

Brandon Burton (20:10.734)
So when I was growing up, my dad was in pharmaceuticals. So he was always coming home talking about the new drug that he was pushing, you know, that he’s selling. So when I was in third grade, we did the whole, you know, what do your parents do for work? And all I knew is that my dad sold drugs. So that that spurred a a phone call home. And I’m glad that I got other exposure to other industries so I didn’t have to follow

MIchelle Bundren (20:29.021)
I’m sure.

MIchelle Bundren (20:35.259)
That’s good. Yeah. So I’m sure that was very interesting for the teachers to hear.

Brandon Burton (20:36.736)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (20:41.6)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. So but yeah, having that exposure to the different opportunities is is so crucial because you’re right. Most of them only know what their parents do. And even at that, they don’t really know the extent of what it is that their parents do. They just know what what gets shared and what what gets talked about in the home. is there anything else from the foundation that you want to highlight and make sure that that you get to shine some light on?

MIchelle Bundren (21:11.349)
I just think if you have if your chamber hasn’t gotten into workforce development work, it really is rewarding and it really is what businesses need. you know, we talk a lot about succession plans and in our community and business, and it’s really an investment in your future to make sure you have that workforce talent developed for the future. I know a lot of times us chambers, we like to do promotion and ribbon cuttings and celebrations. and this is kind of the lesser sexy work, I guess, that you could call it.

It but it really is the most critical for our community that their businesses are preparing for the future workforce. And so that’s been really big for us to help kind of get our businesses to understand what we’re doing to help that this really is a business issue. instead of us just wanting to be in the schools all the time. You know, it’s really a long game plan and strategy.

Brandon Burton (22:00.217)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (22:08.478)
And I like to think of it as the workforce development is really what changes lives of the individuals that are going to be the employees, but also the employers and the impact they can how they can better serve the the community and be more of an impact themselves throughout the community. So it’s important work. so I like to ask for those listening for a tip or action item to

Help those listening who want to take their organization up to the next level, what might you offer for them?

MIchelle Bundren (22:43.483)
Hmm, trying to take it up to the next level. I think one thing that’s been critical for us and it’s been really not easy, even with our board, you know, we used to kind of sit here at the office and wait for business to happen or come to us. and really it’s a shift in our organization. You know, we are out and about a lot. we’re not sitting here waiting for phone calls. We’ve kind of invested in technology as much as we can to be present.

or available through technology, you know, either ring camera or, you know, phone, laptop, all those things. But the idea for us is if we’re not out connecting with people or or doing something, you know, that’s the best use of our time is to be out doing something, not sitting here at the office waiting for a phone call. that’s taking a shift because you know I think sometimes people they’re not in the office, they’re not working.

Brandon Burton (23:40.782)
Yeah.

MIchelle Bundren (23:41.318)
That’s definitely not true. And that’s for a small town like us, it’s a shift because that’s not the model that we’ve had for ninety nine years of business. but for us it’s we’re known for those connections. We’re known for who who the company we keep used to be a tagline of ours way back in the day. and so I really do think that we you’ve gotta kinda think bigger picture with with some of the work that we’re doing for small chambers, one staff, two staff, three staff.

it’s don’t just sit there in the office and kind of feel like you have to man the office. Get out there and build connections and make things happen. and that’s what we’ve seen a lot of success with the last couple of years.

Brandon Burton (24:24.856)
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense, but it is a perception shift to be able to get that imaging out there and and part of that, I mean, social media can be helpful with that when you can show your members what you’re doing and that you’re out connecting with others and and doing all that. well, Michelle, you may remember from last time, but I like asking everyone I have on the show about how you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward.

MIchelle Bundren (24:55.489)
god I yeah, you sent me this and I was trying to think about it. and we talked about it a little bit, but I think just the idea that chambers just host parades and festivals and events y and and things like that are really not the future of chambers. It’s definitely

convening conversations. We’re we’re great greatly positioned for that because we’re kinda neutral politically and local government, business, education, you know, nonprofits. We work a lot with nonprofits and we’re kind of greatly situated to really convene conversations around critical issues. and you really as a chamber have to kind of put yourself there and really step out and lead in that in that way and kind of make yourself

Hey, I want to be at the table of this. Like let’s put get the chamber at the table. Cause a lot of small chambers I work with, ’cause you know, I’m really connected to ones in Kentucky, they’re bored and their community doesn’t view their chamber as an organization that can do more than just ribbon cuttings or more than just a celebration, like I said.

Brandon Burton (25:50.744)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (26:07.052)
Just crazy. Why are you on the board then, right?

MIchelle Bundren (26:09.121)
I know. they just like it to be on the resume or they’re just happy with what what’s always been. but and then sometimes they’re nervous. I get that. I think when they think policy, they think politics and it’s messy and

But really that’s that’s the future is sitting at the table with community leaders, helping solve problems, and you know, making sure the resources are there and any role the chamber can play in helping connect or bring people around a critical issue is really important. there’s always things going on and I think sometimes we’re like, Well, what does the chamber think about it?

It’s sometimes that’s a great question and we should have a voice and sometimes it’s a situation we can stay out of. but the fact that they’re asking our opinion or asking us is means that they value what we do and who we are, ’cause we are the business community. We’re the voice of business. and so we we don’t take that lightly. but we’re so much more than just, you know, meeting for fellowship with the board and eating of lunch together and

you know, me having an event, it’s it’s definitely more than that. And so if you can as a chamberleader, and I’m speaking with small chambers here, really help your board cast a vision for being more, then that’s a really big deal and a really step a big step forward for them.

Brandon Burton (27:34.156)
Yeah, absolutely. I love that answer. Michelle, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who might want to reach out and connect and learn more about how you guys are doing things there at the the Murray-Calloway County Chamber. Where would you point them and what would be the best way to connect?

MIchelle Bundren (27:51.881)
Sure. you can always email me, michelle@mymurray.com. I you can call our office 270-753-5171. But definitely email. I’ll get it on my phone and all the places. So I I stay pretty connected to that.

Brandon Burton (28:19.592)
Very good. We’ll get that in our show notes to make it nice and easy. But I think it’s fantastic that you guys are putting in the work to be selected as a Chamber of the Year finalist again. And I wish you guys the best of luck.

MIchelle Bundren (28:34.088)
Thank you. I really appreciate it.

2026 Chamber of the Year Finalist-El Paso Chamber with Ricardo Mora

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Brandon Burton (00:01.109)
Hello, Chamber Champions! Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and here on the podcast I introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2026 ACCE Chamber of the Year Finalist series. And today we’re joined by Ricardo Mora.

President and CEO of the El Paso Chamber of Commerce. Ricardo has built a dynamic career in the intersection of entrepreneurship, regional development, and cross-border collaboration, launching and managing ventures across real estate, telecommunications, venture capital, and hospitality. Now leading the El Paso Chamber, he’s focused on strengthening binational relationships and advancing the borderplex region as a hub for innovation, commerce, and economic growth.

With deep roots in interconnected economies of El Paso, Las Cruces, and Ciudad Juárez Ricardo brings a unique perspective on what it takes to build opportunity across borders. He uses the chamber’s platform to foster collaboration, support business growth, and position the region as a competitive center for trade and investment. Beyond his work with the chamber, Ricardo has also supported STEAM education and workforce development.

Development through Fundacion Axcel AC helping prepare the next generation for jobs and industries of the future. Fluent in both Spanish and English, Ricardo is a connector, advocate, and community builder dedicated to creating partnerships that drive long term prosperity for the region. Ricardo, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. Congratulations to you and your team for being selected as a Chamber of the Year finalist. I’d love to give you an opportunity

To say hello to all the listeners, and if you would, to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Ricardo Mora (02:01.87)
Well, thank you, Brandon. It’s we’re very excited and thrilled to be part of the finalist for this your great award. Just being a finalist to us is has meant so much to our team. We’re we’re just thrilled to to our existence being part of it. And something interesting about myself that I’d share with you that might be unique is that being part of this cross-border community is is quite different than most would understand.

Brandon Burton (02:09.404)
If you have the save those two pieces, too much.

Ricardo Mora (02:29.942)
And I actually lived in Mexico, which is a five minute drive across the border for about thirty five years and commuted back and forth to school. And this is both communities are really tied by the hip. So that’s come kinda something unique that some people don’t understand. That when you live on a cross border community like El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, it’s the same thing. All that that really is between us is a couple of just a bridge. You get right across and have lunch in one country and have

Brandon Burton (02:56.811)
Yeah.

Ricardo Mora (02:59.8)
Dinner in the other one. So that’s something cool about this this area and about myself.

Brandon Burton (03:05.193)
It’s blown me away as I’ve gone through El Paso, you know, multiple times that you can just look out your window as you drive by. You see Mexico right there. And it very it is very close and very much a cross border town. So I I’m sure the work is very much unique to you guys versus other in other places in the country.

Well, if you would tell us a little bit more about the El Paso chamber, help give us an idea of the size of the chamber, staff, budget, scope of work you guys are involved with to kind of set the stage for our discussion today.

Ricardo Mora (03:42.529)
Sure. So the El Paso Chamber is a 127-year organization. it has been here through since 1899. we currently run a staff of 17 folks on our team, and they’re all high, effective leaders, really hitting on all all cylinders. our annual budget is around 2.6 million dollars, and and we service the cross-border community. So the chamber unites businesses, government, and

Brandon Burton (04:09.333)
The change is

Ricardo Mora (04:12.054)
and community leaders who advocate for growth, champion innovation, and create sustainable prosperity across our entire region. And we do that through three main pillars economic development and innovation, public policy and government relations, and infrastructure and transportation.

Brandon Burton (04:13.215)
Is it here?

have an innovation and create sustainable.

Brandon Burton (04:30.837)
I just want to

Very good. It sounds like you’ve you’ve you’ve given that presentation a few times, right? Of what the mission of the chamber is and those pillars and that that work you guys are involved with. Can tell it’s part of your being.

Ricardo Mora (04:46.542)
We’re all it is, it is. It’s so important to know what you’re doing and where you’re going. We love it.

Brandon Burton (04:52.661)
Yes, absolutely. Well, that definitely will help set the stage for our discussion today. As we do these Chamber of the Year finalist series, we like to spend the majority of our time talking about the programs that were submitted on your Chamber of the Year application. So as soon as we get back from this quick break, we’ll dive into those programs and learn more of those details.

All right, Ricardo, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, that we’re gonna dive into the the two programs that were on your chamber of the year application. I know one of them has to do with the infrastructure project with the the Bridge of the Americas. Would you like to start there with that project or that program and tell us what it’s about and what all it involves?

Ricardo Mora (05:35.983)
Of course. Of course. So in our community, here in El Paso, Texas, on the Texas side, we have three ports of entry that allow commercial capacity to cross back and forth for production. Our community is known for manufacturing and logistics heavily. There’s 350 manufacturing facilities, 70 Fortune 500 companies here, and

So it’s it’s a it’s a big thing for us as we understand commerce in our community or cross border trade is equivalent to commerce. So as the Chamber of Commerce for El Paso, we believe in cross border trade. And every minute that trade does not get through a cross border entry, it really hinders our entire economy, it locally and also on the national level. So I’ll take you back a little bit.

And the Bridge of the Americas was a port that was started. It’s it’s about sixty years old. It is a federal bridge, it is owned by the federal government, it is owned by the general services administration, and like all ports of entries, they are it’s administered by CBP and Homeland Security. Those are the folks that are there day and night. through the Biden Bipartisan Act, there was seven hundred million dollars allocated close to five years ago.

For modernization of this particular bridge and others across the country. There was a bill that passed for about $3.4 billion, and one of our bridges got selected to be modernized. Although last year, through a record of decision by the General Services Administration, there is a formal record of decision to remove commercial traffic from this Bridge of the Americas. And this Bridge of the Americas today is still operating.

it has car vehicles that go north and they go south. it has pedestrians that cross both ways. And it also has cargo that goes to the north and then cargo or or empty trucks that cross southbound for our production model here in in in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. And for us, when we understood that the record of decision was to remove commercial traffic, this particular port has six booths.

Ricardo Mora (07:58.233)
Where trucks drive up and there’s six inspection booths. if we look at the next bridge we have, it’s called Zaragoza Isleta, and that one has eight, and that is on the east side. And there’s a farther booth that is a brand new bridge called Tornillo. that one has three, but one only operational. It’s about 60 minutes to get there. And on the Mexican side, there’s hardly any infrastructure. So it’s a future project. If you add those 15

Areas where trucks can take their paperwork, deleting or eliminating the ones at Bridge of the Americas at six really hinders us close to 40% reduction of our capacity to cross goods. And that is when the chamber said, listen, we really need to step up and understand that cross-border trade is commerce in our community. And there’s many lives that depend on this.

So for every three jobs across the border in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, there’s one job on the El Paso side. That is about a hundred and ten thousand jobs that will be affected by this d record of decision if it comes to fruition. So from the chamber perspective, it’s been a difficult challenge for us, but we also represent many businesses. We have over seven hundred businesses that rely on us that really come together.

Brandon Burton (09:15.063)
I don’t know.

Ricardo Mora (09:23.648)
And and and we are vocal for them to allow them to have a voice at the local, state and federal level. So we’re very concerned about competitiveness as most chambers are across the country. Currently, El Paso is at about sixty seven percent of the national per capita income average. If we move back about thirty years ago, El Paso was one of the lowest cities per capita income in the nineties.

Brandon Burton (09:29.857)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Brandon Burton (09:53.577)
Yeah.

Ricardo Mora (09:53.577)
And removing this commercial capability of an infrastructure that’s existing, it’ll make our city less competitive. when we started studying the process, we learned that the record of decision states that GSA did not take into account the positive or negative effects of removing commercial cargo to the trucking industry, to the manufacturing industry.

Brandon Burton (10:10.583)
GSA did not have negative.

Ricardo Mora (10:22.422)
Or to businesses. It states it on the NIPA study, a very small study that they did around the bridge. And they said this did not include an economic impact study, but could be done at a different time. So, as understanding what we’re doing to the chamber, we’ve commissioned a full-blown economic impact analysis study that we believe it’s an independent study will show the negative effects of removing.

Brandon Burton (10:25.481)
All right, so I’ll tell you.

Ricardo Mora (10:50.902)
40% capacity to our competitiveness as a region. And we’re just blown away by these decisions that are being made, not taking into account the business community. Today we’re over 250 businesses that are part of a coalition behind us, very active. and we’re pushing our narrative to be able to keep commercial traffic at Bridge of the Americas.

Brandon Burton (11:03.391)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (11:07.671)
So what stage are you in with that with the economic impact study? Is it in the early stages, or are you guys in the the middle of it? How

Ricardo Mora (11:25.326)
We would be in the middle of it. we’re expecting to have the economic impact analysis findings by the first week of July. But hold on, June no August, I’m sorry. First week of August. So yeah, July is just around the corner. And and we’ll see what happens there. I know that the Hunt Institute for Global Competitiveness is doing this economic impact study at the University of Texas at El Paso. And and we’ll see what that means. there is also gonna be a positive effect.

Brandon Burton (11:34.591)
Okay. Yes.

Ricardo Mora (11:54.349)
Because the current remodel of modernization is calling for about 30 to 35 car lanes going northbound. Today we have about 15 only. So it would be just basically a lot of vehicles heading northbound. And that would definitely have a positive effect on retail and other industries. However, we believe strongly that since manufacturing and cross-border trade and logistics is so important to our community.

We can’t let that infrastructure project continue. And right now it’s on phase two of the process through the GSA. Basically, they did the record of decision is one, and process number two is there in an RFP to solicit the work to be done, and supposedly it’d be another six months before that RFP is awarded, which will take him to step three of the five step process.

Brandon Burton (12:28.864)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (12:51.689)
Okay.

So my mind goes around to to what all can a chamber do, you know, in a situation like this with the with the bridge and it obviously advocacy is gonna be heavy, right? Getting in front of the right decision makers and being able to to try to influence, but doing this economic impact study as well is gonna be key to being able to have that evidence to back up the arguments that you guys are making. are there other approaches from a chamber standpoint that you can do to to further stand

And make your stance as far as the the impact that it makes to the the local and national economy.

Ricardo Mora (13:30.255)
Well, we we are doing other things. we are convening normally at least once a month our membership. we bring experts to talk about these facts. Any new members that come into the chamber as well. I personally have a chance to speak to them about this cross-border situation that we’re dealing with. And we do find a path forward. I mean, our path forward and our formal ask at the at the state and at the federal level is to pause the implementation.

of this record of decision and allow this decision to be data based on the economic impact analysis. As community members, I would encourage anybody that is dealing with similar issues and maybe not a cross-border international crossing, but anything that is hindering commerce, it’s the chamber’s responsibility. And we have to fight for it. And and I would share that, you know, sometimes we’re not on the same page

Brandon Burton (14:23.02)
Yeah.

Ricardo Mora (14:28.844)
With some of our elected officials. we admire all the work they do and they’re out there doing it. But from an economic side, we need we are really being standing our position that this is not going to be good for our community in the long run. And we just don’t want supply chains to move, relocate, and a lot of things could happen in the future if we don’t get this one right.

Brandon Burton (14:53.289)
Right. And you know, to your point with the elected officials, you know, they they come into office with a limited point of view. They have a limited scope of of understanding and you know, th many of them are very intelligent people, very smart people.

But they get there with only the knowledge they know. And they need chambers like yours to be able to advocate for the local economies and for the the infrastructure and everything else that that takes place and be able to shine a light on it and say, Hey, what you’re doing may have good intentions, but here’s some side effects that are are happening from this as well. well let’s let’s

switch topics now if if if you’re good with that to your second program on your Chamber of the Year application. do you you would like to introduce that to us and tell us what it’s all about?

Ricardo Mora (15:46.691)
Of course. So as any city that that is expanding, and anybody that potentially has not visited El Paso, Texas, we’re on the west tip of Texas, very just right next to New Mexico. Texas, the largest state in the US, Chihuahua, the largest state in Mexico, and we really convene three states and two countries.

And and in our process as a city, a lot of people that drive by by El Paso, there’s I-10. And I-10 goes from east to west and it goes both ways. So Text Dot Text Dot has a project, it already has a phase of part of the project. It’s a $1.4 billion project to make I-10 wider down at at it will start at downtown, which is

We have about seven bridges that connect our downtown to the north part of town. And this is today it’s called elevate the ten. But Techstot is coming in, they’re doing this regardless. The funding is there already to do it. So out of the 1.4 billion, 500 billion are already allocated, the design and the engineering is already on on its way. And as a community, we came together to say, listen.

This is the best opportunity for El Paso to have, instead of having six bridges and a wider highway on both sides, you know, five lanes and five lanes on the other one. Right now we have three downtown. Why don’t we build a cap on top of it? And this will be a green space, like Clyde Warren Park in Dallas that will allow investment, that would allow growth for downtown and

And we’re we’re working together with with the El Paso Foundation, the Deck Foundation, alongside other partners. currently, we’re very excited that we have been making progress and again uniting businesses, government, and community leaders to really understand the impact that this can have on future generations. And this is an impact that is not just, you know, we want to put a cap on it. so as a community, we’re we’ve come together and the community has been able to raise

Ricardo Mora (18:06.306)
About $75 million of a project that is estimated to cost about $207 million in 2027 dollars. But it’s important that the timing is done right because Text Ot is coming anyways. They’re gonna start their construction and we need to be ready to be to do the engineering work, to making sure that we have the columns. As of now, we look very good. It’s moving forward and and making sure that we have the right structure to hold this.

this deck park. We’re super excited about it. And and El Paso it is growing east and it is also growing west and to the northeast. But it is, as you know, downtowns are vibrant and and many downtowns require the heartbeat to be very strong. so so we’re tracking, I mean it’s a huge investment and an outlay for our community. We’re tracking over yeah over a billion dollars in the next thirty years of of of actual

you know, funding for this project that will bring in revenue and and also one to one point five million visitors to El Paso. And we’re just thrilled to be able to form our city.

Brandon Burton (19:13.601)
Yeah. That’s great. But and it’s nice to be able to have examples like Clyde Warren Park in Dallas to be able to look at and see, you know, what does this do for a downtown? What does this do for local economy? What does this do for just the overall

you know, feel and vibe for a city where you can have art and cultural things and being able to to really drive interest to the downtown. I think it’s a a great example. I assume you guys are working with engineers and you know people doing studies to figure out these dollar amounts of what needs to be raised to make this happen. Is that is that something that the chamber takes on, are you working with the city on that, or how does that come together?

Ricardo Mora (19:56.409)
So so it it takes a long time for this to drive, and obviously it is a public private partnership. So recently our city and our county signed the memorandum of understanding to make sure that we’re all working together towards this larger goal. And and then on the on on putting it together, there’s really a lot of meetings that go on in our community. And there’s a lot of concerns as well that need need to be addressed from c our, you know, the entire community about taxes and about

maintenance on this project. So so something important to share is that yes there have been studies. There’s been studies of of other places that have had this and the economic downdrafts of having these type of projects present in a community and we just wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity. this proposed like I mentioned this proposed deck park would be about a six mile deck park that would bring

Brandon Burton (20:27.66)
Yeah.

Ricardo Mora (20:53.834)
Over 1.5 million visitors to our community that would go to local restaurants, that would go to the hotels, that would visit our great mountains and and track all that. And there are studies that show the positive effect of having this. So we are working with our local engineering firms. And it is so so funny you mentioned that because one of our pillars is infrastructure and transportation. And on infrastructure and transportation.

Brandon Burton (21:19.467)
There you go.

Ricardo Mora (21:22.956)
The El Paso Chamber hosts a coalition that is called the El Paso Mobility Coalition. And within this coalition, we see everything that is infrastructure and transportation, whether it’s the I-10 widening, the deck park, what’s happening on international bridges, what’s happening in New Mexico, anything that has to do with infrastructure projects or loop projects, we’re very engaged.

So studies are have shown that by doing this, it’ll allow our community to move forward and scale as a community of our size would, as we need this infrastructure moving forward. So we’re very excited to be part of it. I have a 15-year-old daughter that I want to grow and and she’ll go to college and come back and and see her community, I don’t know, 10 years later, really modified and and and and now thinking that.

The time that I’m here at the chamber and what our team is doing alongside other key partners is making that effect. We’re looking for long term for our community to really be proud of something we were part of.

Brandon Burton (22:28.725)
Yeah. So you bring up a good point of i i it it’s a great vision to have, but there are those things that you need to overcome where people have questions about who’s gonna pay for this, who’s gonna pay for the maintenance and the taxes and so how do you confront that it within the community to be able to

put people’s minds at ease and be able to to show the positive impact that this will have on the city instead of just a a a negative is I I see it all being positive, but I can see where the concerns might come up.

Ricardo Mora (23:00.202)
No, and that’s a great question. So as this began happening, this is several years ago, the there is a definite concern about the community. Alone we’re tracking about five million dollars a year to maintain this actual infrastructure project. but through private public partnership, there was there’s a foundation that was established for this particular project called the Downtown Plaza organization.

That is the organization that has taken the lead and will fund the project and will fund the maintenance. So in the initial conversations, the citizens’ concerns were like, is this going to raise our taxes? Is it going to go on the city budget? How is this really going to affect us? So by this private public partnership and by being part of it, you start getting a little bit of clarity on this overcast sky.

Where people start understanding, okay, so this is really for the good of our community. And we’ll be able to take, you know, for example, this recent announcement is to build an amazing dock park downtown. And it’s a million dollar investment from one of our local community car dealerships that has long been standing here in El Paso. And I don’t know if you know, but El Paso downtown has a magnificent baseball stadium called the Chihuahua Stadium.

Brandon Burton (24:07.414)
Yeah.

Ricardo Mora (24:22.86)
And you can actually take your dog to the park. So so this is quality of life. And I know I’m kind of getting a little bit out of that, but just sharing how our downtown really embraces and how we work through this as a community on open forums and conversations. So I feel very confident that that with our partnership with the Decktown Plaza Foundation, the city, the county, and the businesses, this will get built.

Brandon Burton (24:25.426)
Awesome.

Brandon Burton (24:52.031)
I love that. I love the vision. I love the the influence you guys are showing as well in the community of being able to to see these projects through and answer questions along the way as you convene the right people and and make sure that the ball’s moving forward. as we begin to wrap things up, I wanted to ask you for those listening, for

a tip or action item that you might share with those listening who are interested in taking their organization up to the next level. What would you suggest for them?

Ricardo Mora (25:25.398)
I would suggest to any any other chamber across the country to know that you have a voice. And the voice that you represent truly represents a body of members that you’re driving progress for. And in our case, our value proposition is very simple. We are business-centric. We are we serve our businesses. It is we are a membership-based organization.

So as long as we keep track of that and we know we’re serving our businesses, you have a voice and your voice needs to be heard. So I’m I’m ecstatic about sharing to everybody that don’t feel that you need to, you know, be quiet on topics that you know you have to speak on because everybody in their own community has a challenge like a bridge of the Americas that requires our ch we’re challenging the federal government, and it’s okay.

We live in this beautiful country and we have access to do that and we are the right voice to do it. So I would just encourage all the chambers to take their voice and make sure that they’re they’re aligned to their mission and their vision. And don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid because we can we can move things forward with what we’re trying to push together as chambers.

Brandon Burton (26:42.229)
Yeah, that is one of the great things about being in America, is it’s okay to challenge the federal government and and push back a little bit. So I love that you made that point. Ricardo, I like asking everyone I have on the show about the future of chambers and I’d like to get your take on how you see the future of Chambers of Commerce and their purpose going forward.

Ricardo Mora (27:06.856)
I I believe that that chambers of commerce have been in our communities for so long. Sometimes new businesses have a hard time understanding our value proposition. So so chambers of commerce will always be here. I believe they will, but it really depends on each chamber and how integrated they are with their own community. In our case, what I could share is that.

We’re very, as you can tell, we’re very integrated cross-border. we understand businesses on both sides of the border. in my particular case, I’m a small business owner and I’ve been a small business owner all of my life. So I understand the pain that businesses go through. And and with that in mind, you know, believe in your in your value proposition and believe that you can also go to the community and have your community think about thriving.

Brandon Burton (27:39.83)
Yeah.

Ricardo Mora (28:06.432)
About how they can scale their businesses and how you can help them move forward. In our case, we’ve built programs since last year, where this is our second year running with AI programs for small businesses to help them really understand the tools that are out there to be able to scale and grow. We have businesses of all sizes. About 95% of our businesses are small, but we deliver, I call this like we deliver caviar.

So every chamber across the country delivers caviar. And when you deliver that on a dish, you also have to collect the caviar price. So my process is to say, listen, as long as you have a strong value proposition that you believe in, you go out there and you that you say this is what the value that we bring, this is why we charge X amount of dollars. So I would encourage every chamber member, every chamber across the country to look at their current offering.

Brandon Burton (28:34.292)
Okay.

Brandon Burton (28:49.751)
Yeah.

Ricardo Mora (29:03.414)
And have a strategic plan and think about how you can move forward. Because in order for chambers to thrive in this new economy, we really need to look at the at the at the revenue models. In our community, it’s doing great, but we’re different than than most. And and our members believe that they need to invest into the chamber that invests into El Paso. They’re really investing in in everything that we’re doing and how we’re driving forward.

Brandon Burton (29:15.553)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (29:31.243)
Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Too many chambers undervalue what it is that they bring as far as influence, about as far as impact to the community. And if you can take a hard look and see what that caviar is that you’re delivering and charge accordingly. Make sure you’re getting the value out of that. And but y but you have to deliver the impact with it, right? You you can’t just charge, you gotta deliver the impact. So I love that that vision.

Ricardo Mora (29:53.432)
That is correct.

Brandon Burton (29:59.247)
Ricardo, before I let you go, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you or learn more about how you’re approaching things there in El Paso. What would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect?

Ricardo Mora (30:12.856)
Sure. So we are obviously located in El Paso, Texas. Our website is elpaso.org. Very simple. Elpaso.org. And if anybody wants to reach me, my name is Ricardo, ricardo@elpaso.org. And if you can’t remember my name, and maybe you’re old enough, you’ll remember Ricky Ricardo from I love Lucy. So it’s just Ricardo at elpaso.org.

Brandon Burton (30:38.635)
Ricky Ricardo, yeah.

Ricardo Mora (30:42.72)
Shoot me an email. Love to chat and share what’s working for us and what is not.

Brandon Burton (30:49.279)
That’s perfect. Well, I knew you were going there with Ricky Ricardo, so that’s that’s great. Well we’ll make sure we get your contact information in our show notes for this episode. But this has been great to have you on the show. And again, congratulations to you and your team, and I wish you guys the best of luck as Chamber of the Year.

Ricardo Mora (31:10.648)
Thank you very much, Brandon. Thank you for having us and we look forward to seeing you soon.

Brandon Burton (31:15.384)
Yeah.

2026 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Jackson County Chamber with Ryan Tarrant

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Brandon Burton (00:01.484)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your chamber members and your community. And you’re joining us today for a special episode in our 2026 ACCE Chamber of the Year Finals series. And our guest for this episode is Ryan Tarrant. Ryan is the President and CEO of the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce and Experience Jackson.

Ryan Tarrant (00:05.23)
Thank

Brandon Burton (00:31.448)
Jackson County’s Destination Marketing Organization. In this role, Ryan leads efforts to strengthen the region’s quality of life for businesses, residents, and visitors through advocacy, collaboration, and destination development. Ryan brings a deep experience in business leadership, public policy, and community development. Before coming to Jackson County, he served as Chief Operating Officer of Business Leaders for Michigan, the state’s business roundtable, where he helped guide public policy strategy and organizational execution.

Around making Michigan a top state for jobs, education, prosperity, and economic health. His background also includes significant chamber leadership experience, where he helps secure more than $1 million in public funding for an award-winning talent attraction and retention initiative. He’s also led advocacy efforts, supporting infrastructure, placemaking, and engagement with local, state, and federal officials. Early in his career, Ryan worked in government and politics, serving as chief of staff to U.S.

Ryan Tarrant (01:29.029)
it.

Brandon Burton (01:31.28)
Representative John Mul Mullinar, District District Director for U.S. Representative Dave Camp, and leading numerous federal campaigns. Ryan holds a bachelor’s degree in public science from Saginaw Valley State University. But Ryan, I’m excited to have you back on Chamber Chat Podcast. I’d love to give you an opportunity again to say hello to all the chamber champions who are out there listening and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you even better.

Ryan Tarrant (01:57.946)
Yeah.

Hello everybody. You know, it’s great to be back and it feels a little bit like a follow-up from our previous conversation 18 months ago because we’re going to talk a lot about the program that we were just kicking off at that time and now, you know, really was the program that we submitted this year for Chamber of the Year. So, exciting time, but you know, it’s always interesting. I think I finally reached the point as you were reading my bio where, you know, you read it and the longer it gets, all of a sudden it was like I’ve become the old man.

Brandon Burton (02:29.736)
Right. How did that happen?

Ryan Tarrant (02:30.628)
because I know I’ve been around the block a time or two apparently. know, something I’d like to share, mean, as we talk about.

our program, is called Drive Jackson. you know, part of as I present this locally and, know, we’ve had to go do presentations around the state on this, this new program. One of the slides that I have in there is a picture of a little baby and it happens to be my, first grandchild. So he’s about four and a half months old now. And he was about two weeks old when we first rolled out this program. And so it was that, that initial newborn picture where, you know, the head’s a little bit off and you know, still.

Brandon Burton (03:08.11)
yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Tarrant (03:08.88)
And so now he’s starting to get a personality, but I think it holds true and it really comes down to sort of the why of why I’m so passionate about the work that we’re doing here in Jackson County.

Brandon Burton (03:20.13)
That’s awesome. I love it. Well, first of all, huge congratulations to you and your team for being selected as a Chamber of Year finalist. It’s a great testament to the work and impact you guys are making there in your community. but tell us tell us a little bit about the Jackson County Chamber to give us an idea of the size, staff, scope of work, budget to kind of set the stage for our discussion.

Ryan Tarrant (03:32.72)
Thank you.

Ryan Tarrant (03:42.478)
Sure, so for us we’re…

know, Chamberside, a couple of years ago, we were at about a $600,000 a year budget. You know, last year was about $900,000. But then we also have Experience Jackson, which is the destination marketing organization for Jackson County or convention and visitors bureau. And so their budget this year is about $1.3 million. So, you know, between the two organizations, we’re a little bit north of $2 million and, you know, being housed in the same place, sharing an executive also allows us to sort of…

hire for different skill sets and talents. And so, you know, we’re blessed to be able to have a overall team of 10. You know, I split my time 50-50 between the two organizations. We have a number of other employees that do that. Some are 90-10. And so, you know, we were able to house a research and data director, for example, who does a lot of our economic impact reports. And, you know, he started out on the DMO side, but we’ve pulled him into a lot of the work that we’re doing here in the chamber because of

the economic impact that we’re having here in our community. As far as scope of work, we do all the normal chamber things, right? This morning we wrapped up our final monthly breakfast before the summer break here in Michigan. So I’m fresh off of that, had our biggest crowd yet. And so we’re doing those types of things. But I think a big part of where we’ve really doubled down is in this community and economic development, but then also the advocacy work. And we’re not gonna talk a lot about the advocacy

Brandon Burton (04:47.18)
Yeah. That that makes a lot of sense.

Ryan Tarrant (05:13.292)
work today, but you know we partner with our state chamber, with our regional chambers on a lot of those business issues, but we also feel like for us we’re actually our community’s advocate.

And so it’s not just those business issues, which we’re strong on on the advocacy front, but also as we’re going through these pieces and looking at what projects are out there in our community that we can we can impact and push forward. You know, over the last couple of budget cycles, we’ve secured a little over eight million dollars in state funding and direct appropriations for different projects in the community. Not a single dime has come to the chamber. You know, a lot of it goes to the city, the county, local nonprofits, but

Brandon Burton (05:52.93)
Yeah.

Ryan Tarrant (05:54.518)
But they’re really incredibly important work that’s happening in the quality of life space, the tail and attraction, destination development. so where there’s those opportunities, we really want to be the ones who are seen as the go-to in our community and really have become that.

Brandon Burton (06:11.212)
Yeah, and if you can help be the driver of those funds into the community, even if it doesn’t hit the chamber directly, it helps foster those relationships that really show the impact we have in the community.

Ryan Tarrant (06:14.502)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I mean, a great, great example right now is we’ve got a hundred year old. turns a hundred, this building turns a hundred years old, called the Hayes Hotel. this year it was a hotel for about 50 years closed down in the late seventies, early eighties, became the annex for a fortune 500 companies headquarters. And then they left it 25 years ago. And so it’s been sitting vacant for 25 years. right now we’re in the process that the chain link fence just went up the shoots and the crane are coming for the roof, this week.

Brandon Burton (06:41.592)
Okay.

Ryan Tarrant (06:51.048)
But we ended up securing four and a half million dollars toward a 32 million dollar redevelopment project that’ll be a couple of floors of mixed use and then 109 downtown market rate apartments that, you really with a Fortune 500 company on one end of downtown and then this new building housing over 100 market rate apartments and some new life sort of will anchor our downtown for, you know, the next generation.

Brandon Burton (07:18.254)
Yeah, that’s fantastic. I love hearing that. Well, with these Chamber of the Year episodes, I like to spend the majority of our time discussing the programs that get submitted on these applications. So we’ll dive in deep on that and and learn more about these programs. And like you said, a follow-up from your previous episode, which is back in episode 310, as soon as we get back from this quick break.

Brandon Burton (07:44.879)
All right, Ryan, we were back. So as I mentioned before the break, we’ll dive into the the program submitted on the Chamber of the Year application. And you teased at the beginning, this is kind of a follow-up from your previous appearance on the podcast. So if you will just dive into that and tell us about the program and kind of the the origins and how it’s evolved.

Ryan Tarrant (08:05.67)
Yeah, sure. So, you know, I think the origins for us, we really started with a problem statement, you know, that that wasn’t a shock to anybody in our community. know, Jackson County and the city specifically have been losing population for the city. It’s been 40 percent over the last 60 plus years of their population down to about 30, 31000. The county over the last couple of decades has has started to stagnate and even shrink a little bit. And so, you know, as we look at that, it’s it’s not unique around the country to Midwest communities.

especially those with a of a manufacturing heritage. And I took trips to Bentonville, Arkansas, and I’ve been to Grand Rapids, which is like the North Star for Michigan, and seeing just the incredible growth and the things that they’re doing in those communities, but also recognizing that here in Jackson, we don’t necessarily have the Walmart.

headquarters and we don’t have the Walton Family Foundation and those types of things. Or if you’re in Grand Rapids, it’s the DeVos family and Amway and so many others. But what we found even with those was there’s a consistency to what they’re doing. For Bentonville, it’s been over 20 or 25 years. For Grand Rapids, even longer. I it goes back to the 70s, the redevelopment that they’ve seen and the consistency that they’ve implemented that with. so, looking around the country at other growth communities, kind of our size in the Midwest,

We can’t compete with you down there in Texas on weather in the winter, you know, or Georgia or Florida, but, know, rapid city, South, South Dakota is growing and Elkhart, Indiana is growing. And those are places like I actually would have never thought of, of wanting to move to, but people are moving there and they’re growing and thriving communities. And so, you know, it really all comes down to this consistency. And so, we kind of took a look at how do we, how do we do a project and implement something in our community? You know, when you, when you look at the.

Horizon initiative and you talk about the disruptions and building out this resiliency in your community, what can we do as our part of that? And I think what we found was this long-term vision of, and for us it’s 20 years and a planning process that took nine months. We brought in a planning consultant out of Columbus, Ohio called Planning Next. They did a phenomenal job for us, but they really sort of helped to organize this whole process

Ryan Tarrant (10:26.76)
for us over nine months where we brought in a key leadership committee of 24 people that looked like our community. When you look at the census data, we had a CEO and we had a server at a local restaurant who served on this. We had a retiree and we had a high school student and sort of everything in between. And they sort of led this charge in our community to go out and engage members and residents through pop-up.

Brandon Burton (10:49.486)
Yeah.

Ryan Tarrant (10:53.286)
pop-ups and table talks in their homes and all of these things. And over the course of two rounds of engagement, we engaged over 1,300 residents. They provided more than almost 6,000 pieces of data for us to sort of input into this that the key leadership committee could then look at and say, we now know what every corner of our community is saying the needs are, what it is that they love about our community, but what we can do better. We got, in some cases, the unvarnished truth.

Brandon Burton (11:23.138)
Yeah,

Ryan Tarrant (11:23.381)
which is a good thing and a great place to start. I I’d love to highlight when we talk about those different engagements.

that even with that second round, we actually went back and looked and we said, okay, we’re really light on our Hispanic population in that first round. So how do we get that up and meet that number for the census numbers in our community? And we actually took these engagement boards and translated them into Spanish. And we had a couple of our key leadership committee members who spoke Spanish. They went through a Sunday mass, Spanish speaking mass and engaged with the person who was afterwards.

And so, you know, from that you look at it and it’s, you know, it’s really tough to engage young people. We over-sampled young people.

And so, you know, we felt really good about the process and what came out of it that we were hearing from our entire community. And so since then, we rolled out this, you know, 72 page plan in March that has four goals around quality of life and the perception of our community, housing and economic development, know, K-12 education and lifelong learning, and then health and public safety. And within sort of these four buckets, you’ve got 54 strategies that are going to lead our community through the next 20 years.

to make sure that we were implementing with some fidelity. We early on in this process started to create a vision council. And so that’s sort of our CEO leadership group, which is exactly what you would think of it as, right? mean, generally in the community, you get these CEOs in a group and they’re going to put together the plan and it’s done in this ivory tower. And then they come out and say, this is the plan and what we’re gonna do and where we’re gonna go. In our case, it came from all of Jackson County

Brandon Burton (12:54.744)
Yeah.

Ryan Tarrant (13:09.032)
and the people. And now it’s up to this group to really be the engine that drives it because they’re the funders. We’ve got philanthropic CEOs and chairs at this table. And so it really becomes in a community our size about aligning resources, making sure everybody’s on the same page and prioritizing these 54 strategies. Because for us, it’s not a chamber plan. It is entirely a community-based plan, even if we’re the ones that maintain ownership

and know, the administrative functions. And so, you know, we’re working in a process of aligning funders for projects in addition to now going back and going out to the legislature for appropriations because, you know, the phrase we use is 40 and 20. It’s a 20 year plan. We want 40 transformational projects in that first 20 years. And we think we can get there between that local funding and then that state level funding.

funding through grants and appropriations. we’re really excited about it. Implementation has rolled out really well. We can talk a little bit about that as we go through, but that’s kind of the crux of the program, I guess, if you will, that we submitted.

Brandon Burton (14:20.142)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (14:24.558)
That’s awesome. So it’s funny you mentioned Bentonville. I was actually in Bentonville, Arkansas last week and I thought of you before the the finalists are announced because of our previous conversation and you know the the efforts you guys are making with placemaking and everything there in Jackson County. but I I’m fascinated by the the idea of getting, you know, putting together this twenty year plan and

Ryan Tarrant (14:31.014)
Yep.

Ryan Tarrant (14:38.907)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon Burton (14:46.9)
and getting the input of citizens throughout the community. So do they do these individuals have a formal role? Is it a matter of just polling them? Do they sit on some sort of a committee? How does that I don’t know if that plays into the implementation part that you talked about or or not?

Ryan Tarrant (14:59.332)
you

So you’re talking about the 1,300 people who engaged in this process? Yep.

Brandon Burton (15:06.286)
Yeah, so I guess yeah.

Ryan Tarrant (15:08.294)
So we had the leadership committee that was really the ones that sort of looked through that feedback and helped to shape the plan. But as far as the 13 heart, what we tell everybody every time we present is this is not a chamber plan, this is a community plan. You should see yourself in this. mean, just this morning I was talking to our breakfast group about over the summer as we’re on our break, thinking about where it is they fit, whether you’re an organization, a business, an individual, there is a strategy in there that you can

you can help to move the needle on and you need to find that place so that we’re all working together.

Since we’ve rolled it out, we actually have a fellow who was provided to us by the state of Michigan that we had to apply for and it was competitive. She came to us. She was the director of policy and research at our state’s population growth office actually for the last year and a half. And so now she’s embedded here. She’s a Jackson native. And so she and I have been kind of going out and doing what we call coffee chats. And so every corner of the community, know, the small towns and villages here in the city and being able

to engage with those people who engaged in the process early on, but maybe aren’t necessarily coming to chamber events. And it might be a retiree in a village called Concord on the west side, or it may be folks in a lake community called Brooklyn, the southern end of the county, and going to a coffee shop and gathering people to be able to say, OK, so you’ve had a chance to review it. Now, what are these actions that we can take to actually implement a strategy, move the needle,

and feel like we’re accomplishing some of these goals. And so I think it’s important to keep those people engaged and even to expand it out past that group that had engaged in the first part of the process.

Brandon Burton (16:58.114)
Yeah. Okay. So you talked about the twenty and forty, so or the forty and twenty, I I can’t remember the the order, but forty projects in those in those twenty years. can you give us an idea of what the range of those projects could entail? I mean, an average of two projects, depending on the scale of could be pretty intimidating, but just help help give us an idea of what what the size of these projects might entail, what they might look like.

Ryan Tarrant (17:02.822)
Yeah.

Ryan Tarrant (17:23.546)
Yeah, so we rolled this out at our annual meeting on February 11th and in the first 90 days, we’ve actually had three projects that have been rolled out. So when you talk about two a year, we’ve got three that are essentially privately funded, have nothing to do with state appropriations. We’ve got a number of those pieces out there right now as our legislators work through that process this year.

Brandon Burton (17:34.988)
Yeah.

Ryan Tarrant (17:45.378)
The first one was called RX Kids, and so this is something that started in Flint, and it’s a program that regardless of a woman’s income, any woman in the city of Jackson and Blackman Township, and there’s other communities around the state that are participating, any pregnant woman in those two communities here in Jackson will receive $1,500 regardless of income during pregnancy. And then for the first six months of the baby’s life, they also receive $500.

And this is one of those things, like I said, this isn’t a chamber plan. It was spearheaded by our community foundation, but it comes directly out of drive Jackson and the 20 year plan. You have our fortune 500 foundation. You’ve got other company foundations and individuals who raised over $300,000 in a matter of six weeks to be able to match the state funding for this. And that’s a program that during the three year pilot is gonna have about $11 and a half million of economic impact in our community. And it’s really about,

that health and wellness and some of that financial security that we all see it when we go to the gas pump right now. Like I said, I’m old, I’m beyond having children, but imagine having a kid and being pregnant and all of sudden gas is jumping to five bucks a gallon and the cost of beef is up to $7 a pound and all of those things. And it’s just an opportunity and we’ve seen in some of the early stages of this that there’s been some impressive health outcomes and it helps reduce

some of that stress on the mother and baby. so, you know, so that’s an incredible one that came out right out of the shoe. You know, fast forward another month. I mean, it feels like we’re rolling something out every month, right? We have a nonprofit in town.

Brandon Burton (19:20.846)
Yeah. Yeah, fast forward.

Ryan Tarrant (19:29.734)
called Grow Jackson that started a few years ago working on food insecurity. And they signed a lease with our county government who owns the Michigan’s oldest prison, was in Jackson in the city. And the county owns the property now. It’s no longer a prison, but the historic walls are there. And they have an old armory within these walls. And so they’ve signed this lease to create a food hub.

and a farm stop. And so they’re now managing our county’s farm market inside the prison walls. They’re in process of building out this food hub farmers market where it’s something that happens not just on Saturday for our farmers, but they can bring their produce directly to this food hub and food stop. And they’re capturing 80 % of the profits off of it versus the 15 % when you go and buy it, a Kroger, a Hy-Vee, a Meyer,

whatever the grocery store is, wherever you live in the country. And so it benefits that local economy. Well, fast forward, the executive director is 27 years old. Experience Jackson was in talks to create a beer garden as part of our destination development and placemaking. And so we were going to be running this beer garden and we had a budget for it. And what I realized was with him having this space over there, we got to talking one day and it’s to the

Brandon Burton (20:25.228)
Yeah.

Ryan Tarrant (20:52.686)
that you have to not care who gets credit for stuff. So what I recognized was, number one, I don’t want to run a beer garden. don’t have the capacity for it. Number two, it’s probably going to be cooler if a 27-year-old builds it out versus the 50-year-old. Right?

Brandon Burton (20:55.938)
Yeah, absolutely.

Brandon Burton (21:03.554)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (21:08.862)
Maybe, yeah.

Ryan Tarrant (21:12.39)
Right. And number three, he moves with such rapid pace that we were never going to get something off the ground this summer. He now has a beer garden opening this summer where we’re doing this farm stop food hub, this build out of the farmers market. And it’s just kind of building on itself. And that’s a program when you look at that three year economic impact, it’s over $25 million.

And then the third one is something the chamber’s directly running, is called Build in Jackson. The New York Post actually ran an article about a city program that we have here called 100 Homes, which was offering $25,000 in down payment assistance that you could couple with $10,000 in state assistance toward a down payment on a brand new three bedroom, one and a half story build in the city of Jackson. And the cost of the home was $178,000. So you do the math, 35K off of 178 for a brand new

built with the basement. Well, it’s ARPA dollars. so fast forward to this year and come, you when we got to March, the city came to the chamber and said, we’ve only sold half of the homes and we have to spend the money by the end of the year. And so what we did was in in about a 48 hour window, with partners put together a package that includes, you know, a bike or a kayak because we’re leaning into our outdoor amenities.

know, sort of those downtown experiences, whether it’s our symphony orchestra and restaurants, restaurant gift cards, but then also those wraparound pieces, you know, dinner with the mayor and engaging them as an 18 to 35 year old cohort to, you know, get out to meet people, to get embedded into the community, to get them on, get them serving on non-profit boards. And so we’re running a cohort of 10. We’ve just approved this week our first three. We have two in the next

next four in the queue that are from out of state. So we’ve got one moving from Tennessee. Can’t tell you the last time somebody moved from Tennessee to Michigan, so we’re pretty excited about that.

Brandon Burton (23:10.742)
Yeah.

Ryan Tarrant (23:12.612)
You know, but that one when you look at that three-year economic impact is about seven and a half million. And so, you you look at those things that have been rolled out in the first 90 days that, you know, are getting threaded throughout the community, and you’re talking about $42 million in economic impact just in the first three months over the next three years. And so, you know, and every time I talk to somebody, we’ve got a local manufacturer in a rural community who’s partnering with their local school district because the school district, because of Drive Jackson, wants to create a tech hub for their students.

company wants to be involved in moving the needle for Drive Jackson and so they’ve offered the match money. And so now we’re playing matchmaker for the manufacturer and the school district with some of the potentially interested philanthropic groups in the community to make sure that this gets funded and gets up and running for the next school year. And so, you know, everything that’s happening in our community is being touched by the chamber. You know, and we’re sort of viewed as that when you want something to happen,

Brandon Burton (24:00.151)
Well.

Ryan Tarrant (24:10.628)
you know, it starts here, we’re the hub.

Brandon Burton (24:13.228)
Yeah, that is those are some great examples and I couldn’t help but think with Gro Jackson that there’s gotta be a curiosity factor too for people to wanna come in and check out the the market to be able to get inside the walls of the prison and and check it out a little bit.

Ryan Tarrant (24:27.015)
it

You know, and I’ve got to tell you, I went to their grand opening farmers market, you know, this spring. And when I pulled inside the prison walls and you think about, mean, we’ve still got the biggest prison in Michigan now, but you know, it’s not there anymore. It’s newer and nicer. But inside these old historic walls that make you feel a little bit like you’re looking at the Shawshank Redemption Walls. And it felt like the entire area was full of cars the first day because, you know, it was just

Brandon Burton (24:44.002)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (24:49.804)
Yeah.

Ryan Tarrant (24:57.736)
is so enormous compared to what we had had before. And so we’re really excited about the opportunities there.

Brandon Burton (25:04.374)
That is really cool. I love those examples. I love the the impact that those programs are gonna make in the community. And that’s only three of the forty in the first twenty years. So

Ryan Tarrant (25:07.354)
here.

Ryan Tarrant (25:15.362)
And I think that’s the piece that’s so important for chambers now is as we shift and, know, I think what some of us have struggled with over the years and, you know, I certainly have been guilty of this as well, is understanding the data, understanding how to tell the story that that data tells, but then also measuring that economic impact because more and more our members, you know, especially the larger the business, you know, the more they want to see that data and return on investment. And so how do we as chambers tell that story?

show our impact and I think that’s where this is one of those things with some of the partnerships with those.

Brandon Burton (25:46.765)
Yes.

Ryan Tarrant (25:53.106)
having a data and research director being able to pull down. Every time there’s one of these projects, we run an economic impact report because we want to know what the economic impact is. initially it was, OK, can we impact $10 million in the first year? Well, here we are 90 days in, and it’s like, OK, we know we’re measuring $42 million. And so now we’re starting to look at it and thinking, how quick can we get to $1 billion in economic impact for our community? And with everybody on board, every CEO, every company,

Brandon Burton (26:16.502)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Tarrant (26:22.92)
them aligning instead of being in silos. I think it becomes, the longer you do it, the more you embed it in the culture. I think the easier it is. mean, you we talked about the rise in report and sort of, you know, the speed that things move and, you know, how things happen. And we talk about dealing with disruptions and yes, we have to build that resiliency, which we feel like we’re doing with this. But I think in some sense, it’s also being the disruptor.

a little bit in your community. mean, you know, the community of Jackson sort of has, I think, for a long time felt like we have Ann Arbor to the east and Detroit, you know, so you have University of Michigan and then to the north you have Michigan State University and here people sort of think of us as prison city. And I think this has given them, you know, sort of that hope of hope and optimism of, you know, we are going places and we’re the example for the state now.

Brandon Burton (26:53.134)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon Burton (27:18.402)
Yeah. that is awesome. And that my thoughts were going there next with how do you get the story out there? You get the the the reports of the economic impact and be able to share those stories. ’cause nothing, you know, gets at me more when you hear somebody say, Well, what does a chamber even do? And if you’ve got a whole catalog of all these things that you’re doing and the impact it’s making in the community, it’s like, what would the community look like without the chamber, right? Exactly.

Ryan Tarrant (27:43.185)
Exactly. Yeah. And to those stories, mean, you one of the other things we do, because again, we’ve sort of got this combined resource, is we’re able to bring in a storyteller who comes in and does eight interviews a week. And so we’re not just sort of telling, saying, hey, you know, come to this store because it’s got a sale. He’ll go in and meet with the owner and talk to the owner and sort of tell the story of the person behind the sale, right? Who’s started this from scratch or who bought a boutique in a small

community and why they’re there, why they have the passion for the community because whether you’re a resident, a visitor, you’re looking at a community to move to, you you want to feel that connection. I mean, part of social media, working remotely so much, you know, I think when people travel, when they’re in their community, they really want to feel connected to it these days. And so that’s really been a great opportunity for us. And it’s really kind of cool and exciting to see it sometimes because, you know, we ran one in a small village on a boutique owner and

And one of the neighboring stores down the street actually put up a billboard that said, put the little billboard up congratulating her on this story that was written about her and shared on social media. And they get hundreds of thousands of views because people are so passionate about their community and it reaches outside of your community too. And so it starts to sort of feed back to that, people think of us as prison city, but there’s so much more. And so it’s really something that we’ve taken on.

Brandon Burton (28:55.96)
That’s really cool.

Brandon Burton (29:03.927)
Yes.

Ryan Tarrant (29:12.53)
is what does that public perception look like, not only internal to Jackson, but externally around the state for us. And so it feels like we’re starting to make headway as we get out and talk about Drive Jackson and the things that we’re doing.

Brandon Burton (29:25.89)
Yeah, that’s awesome. well John Ryan, as we start to wrap things up, I always like asking on behalf of those listening, yeah, especially right now as a chamber the year finalist, what kind of tip or action item might you leave for the listener who’s wanting to take their organization up to the next level? Well

Ryan Tarrant (29:44.868)
Well, I mean, I think what I would say is, you know, having grown up in and now living in a community where I’ve heard a lot of, well, you know, this is just kind of what we have and we should be happy with it. I think there’s nothing that’s impossible in your community.

it’s aligning the right partners, it’s determining where it is you wanna go. think having sort of a vision of where your community wants to go, but engaging the entirety of your community. I mean, it’s really, really tough. Our friend Bob Thomas, who’s the COO at the Michigan Chamber, early on, I think in my first couple of months running a chamber a decade ago, said it’s really challenging to build consensus now and perhaps all we can hope for is grudging consent. And it’s okay to get to

Brandon Burton (30:17.484)
Yes.

Ryan Tarrant (30:31.076)
and consent because over time if you’re consistent you implement with fidelity you start to build consensus around things and so I think it’s really rewarding when you see that stuff happen. You know I’m always happy to help help other chambers and to talk through the things that we’re doing. I mean it’s such a great industry to be able to lean on those people who are doing the things you know. I know we’ve got a lot of a lot of great finalists out there. Janelle Smith from Howell Area Chamber of Commerce who will be on at some point as a good friend.

mine and about 50 miles away so you know we were excited to see each other both as finalists and so you know look look forward to sharing that and you know just just kind of kind of keep at it we can we can transform our communities and shape them into the things that we want as as residents of our own communities and the things that businesses need so.

Brandon Burton (31:07.0)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (31:21.432)
Yeah, that’s great. I w I also like to ask about the future of Chambers. You’ve mentioned the Horizon Report a couple of times, in our conversation, but how do you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward?

Ryan Tarrant (31:27.952)
Okay.

Ryan Tarrant (31:33.37)
Well, I think it’s always going to be critical to be able to make those connections.

between business owners, those networking opportunities, those advertising opportunities, they’re always going to be a piece of what we’re doing as chambers of commerce. But I think when we look at sort of the holistic, think it’s what are these bigger programs and projects that impact our entire community? Because people are so transient and can move with remote work, with changing jobs, that what is it that we do to keep populations where they are or to attract new population? And so for us, we’re working on building

out our model where, you know, those events and sponsorships are about a quarter and membership is only a quarter.

But the other half comes from grant funding for programs and projects and then capital campaigns. You know, we’re just kicking off this week a quarter million dollar capital campaign for our new foundation, which incidentally is called Drive Jackson. It makes it a little bit easier to fund drive days when you name it right. But I think having that diversity in your revenue mix and being able to impact your entire community versus

Brandon Burton (32:32.16)
Right. That’s right.

Ryan Tarrant (32:45.352)
thinking more narrowly as to just our members is really where those growth opportunities come in for chambers going forward in the future.

Brandon Burton (32:54.69)
Yeah, that’s great. well I wanted to give you a chance, Ryan, to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you or learn more about these programs you’re implementing there in Jackson County Chamber. What would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect?

Ryan Tarrant (33:10.48)
So I’ll give you two ways. You can reach out to me on my cell phone. That is 989-708-7683 or my email, ryan@JacksonChamber.org. And if you want to learn more about the Drive Jackson plan, it can be found at drivejacksoncounty.com. And our entire team is happy to help and share. We’ve got incredible staff here. Our leadership team’s amazing.

So happy to help anyone if they think we can.

Brandon Burton (33:43.788)
Very good. Well we’ll make sure that’s in our show notes and make it easy to connect. But this has been great to have you back on the podcast and especially under these circumstances. And I wish you and your team the best of luck as Chamber of the Year.

Ryan Tarrant (33:56.41)
Thank you. It was great to come back on and be able to talk about, you know, from the plan and where we started the idea to actually now implementing it. So thank you very much. Full circle.

Brandon Burton (34:05.987)
Full circle moment, you bet.

2026 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Boone Area Chamber with David Jackson

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Brandon Burton (00:01.25)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and here on the on the podcast, I introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2026 ACCE Chamber of the Year finalist series. And joining us today is David Jackson.

President and CEO of the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce in North Carolina, and one of the high country’s most influential community advocates. Since taking the helm of the chamber in 2016, David has helped drive initiatives that strengthen economic development, support local businesses, and enhance quality of life throughout the Boone region.

His leadership has helped position the organization as a trusted partner in addressing community opportunities and challenges while earning recognition as the 2025 Carolina’s Outstanding Chamber of the Year. David’s commitment to community service extends well beyond the chamber. He serves on numerous local and regional boards and commissions, contributes to economic development efforts across the high country, and teaches as an adjunct professor at Appalachian State University’s Walker College of Business.

His impact has been recognized through several honors, including being named Community Advocate of the Year by the North Carolina Rural Center and receiving both the Town of Boone 1872 Award and the Community Inspiration Award in 2025. Before leading the chamber, David spent 16 years with Appalachian State Athletics, including a decade as Associate Athletic Director.

Many listeners may recognize his familiar voice from behind the microphone, where he built an award-winning broadcast career, earning two North Carolina Sportscasters of the Year honors. Today he continues to be a familiar voice for App State Athletics and the Carolina Panthers. Whether discussing leadership, community growth, economic development, or the future of the high country, David brings a unique perspective shaped by decades of service, storytelling, and engagement. Let’s welcome back David Jackson. David,

Brandon Burton (02:09.218)
Love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the chamber champions who are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you even better.

David Jackson (02:18.063)
Yeah, well it’s it’s great to be back. always good to to see an email pop up from you in the inbox, but and it it’s also great to be in a space where you know you can talk to people that understand the work that we do on a daily basis. So yeah, so in and thinking about the the next fun fact here, I actually got into the broadcast side that you were talking about by growing up in a household where my dad was a local television weatherman.

He he served as meteorologist at WFMY TV in Greensboro for a little over twenty years and had about thirty years in the industry. so we we moved to North Carolina in nineteen eighty-two, right after Michael Jordan hit the shot that gave North Carolina the national championship and made him a little bit famous. And and and that that kind of solidified my love for sports in a new area, but but yeah, so I I used to go back to work with my dad at night and

Brandon Burton (03:00.012)
La vea.

David Jackson (03:11.515)
sneak out of the weather office and go hang out with the sports guys and and that’s kind of where my career interest got started.

Brandon Burton (03:17.294)
Yeah, that’s awesome. So I’m curious, did your dad have to change his name as a weatherman? You see all these, you know

David Jackson (03:23.793)
No, he he had a plain enough name that that was okay. So he d he didn’t have a stage name or anything like that. But but it it’s interesting he he got started in sports as well and was was the radio station director. he went to Southern Illinois in Carbondale and was the the sports director at the radio station and and called games for the Salukies. So when I was working at App State, after he left TV weather

Brandon Burton (03:28.074)
Okay.

David Jackson (03:49.052)
I actually had him join our broadcast crew as our sideline reporter, and we worked together for about a decade in that in that way. So he actually continued on with the network after I left. So he was he was the my inside scoop for for information there for a while. But it it was a fun opportunity to work with a parent and and anything, let alone something like that, was really special.

Brandon Burton (04:00.055)
Okay.

Brandon Burton (04:12.642)
Yeah. Very cool. well I know we just

Recently had you on I say recently, it was I guess December of twenty twenty five that your your previous episode aired on the podcast. But it you’re definitely a familiar voice and face on the on Chamber Chat Podcast. But for those who maybe miss that episode or s tune in especially for these Chamber of the Year final series, tell us about the Boone Area Chamber to give us perspective, the size of your chamber, staff, scope of work, budget you guys work with, just to kind of set the stage for our

Yeah.

David Jackson (04:47.665)
Yeah, sure. So the the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce is located in the mountains of northwest North Carolina in Watauga County. We are on the state line of Tennessee and are real close to the Virginia border. So if you think about the triangle where where North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia come together up there in the northwest, we are located in in that region of the state. About an hour and forty-five minutes northwest of Charlotte, about an hour and forty-five minutes west of Greensboro. So beautiful area of the mountains. We’re at about thirty five hundred feet up here.

and and enjoy the the mountain climate. We’re in rainforest season right now, which is good because we we were also experiencing drought conditions. So rain right now as Chamber of Commerce weather. our organization has about 700 members, give or take on the day. You all understand that. our budget annually for the C6 side of the house is about 850,000 in terms of revenue. and that number has has grown some over the years.

Brandon Burton (05:30.237)
Okay.

David Jackson (05:46.45)
We’ve got a staff of eight full time employees and and a couple of part time employees at this point. And in the last two and a half years or so, we’ve taken on a five one C three foundation, which was very helpful to us in the recovery from Hurricane Helene. I know we talked about that a lot in the last episode. but that that has made for us to to have between a one point seven five and two million dollar organization totally.

Brandon Burton (06:01.326)
Must be a recovery.

I’m sorry. but that no.

David Jackson (06:14.379)
if you if you use Mike Gelman terminology, our our our full full organization runs right around two million and and has a lot of philanthropic tie-in to it as well. So we we’ve evolved in that way in the last three to four years and and really feel like we are a different organization now than we were five years ago.

Brandon Burton (06:34.668)
I’m sure you feel bit just more solid, more strength behind that with having more of that infrastructure built out and we I’m sure we’ll talk more about that throughout this episode as well. that definitely does help to set the stage though.

David Jackson (06:42.759)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon Burton (06:49.622)
So, for these Chamber of the Year finalist episodes, what I’d really like to spend the bulk of our time on is the programs of work that were submitted on your Chamber of the Year application. So, as I understand, just from a high level, you guys have a child care program that we’ll address that ties into your economic development initiatives, and also a community resilience fund that, if I’m not mistaken, came out of the Helene recovery efforts. So we’ll dive in deeper on the details of those two programs.

As soon as we get back from this quick break.

All right, David, we’re back. as I mentioned before the break, kind of hitting on the the two programs that were submitted on your chamber of the year application. I don’t know if you have a preference on which one you want to address first in our discussion today. yeah, yeah, we can part. All right. Well let’s let’s let’s attack the child care front. I know that

David Jackson (07:36.851)
He yeah, yeah, we can we can start with whichever one you would like to.

Brandon Burton (07:44.994)
That tends to be something nationwide that there’s issues with. So hopefully there’s some good things that listeners can learn from.

David Jackson (07:51.41)
Yeah, so we we touched on this the last time we talked a little bit. you know, most most chambers and economic development organizations, if you haven’t been involved in this space, you’re warming up to it now that that early childhood development and and child care in general is an essential piece of economic development strategy. we have been involved in this conversation in our community for nearly a decade now. we had our our smart start agency got together a group of business

leaders and business owners and and just community influencers a little over nine years ago now and just said, hey, you know, we need to do an asset map. We need to first of all tell you, help you connect the dots why childcare is essential for businesses that that may not even have employees with children, why why this is such an important fabric of our community. So we really took took that that on as a challenge to try to help message that to our business community. just the the essential

workforce that that that industry represents. But then also shining some light on how porous that industry was. you know, you were talking about solid foundations earlier, and I don’t know if there’s a state in the country that can claim that they’ve got a solid foundation underneath their early child care system. Here in North Carolina, there is a state a state subsidy floor that is actually being debated in the General Assembly as we speak.

That has not been reset in about six years. So when you start thinking about the the cost of doing business for the business and getting full cost of care for the children that they are caring for, they are missing the mark by a lot. And that that doesn’t even account for the inflationary increases that we’ve seen, you know, over the last 18 months or so. So this industry is is in a very difficult situation for its own solvency, yet we rely on

these centers and these workers nurturing our children at their most vulnerable time of brain development, trying to get them ready for for pre-K and kindergarten and on into third grade assessments. But we also know that without those businesses, we have no business. We we have so many people in this particular community, dual family career households are the norm. You you cannot afford to live here on one income. So

Brandon Burton (10:02.85)
Really, yeah.

David Jackson (10:15.249)
Families need that security of knowing that they’ve got a place for their children to go, that it’s safe, it’s well maintained, they’re going to get education and not just screen time sitting over in the corner. you know, so we have championed those efforts and and have been, you know, kind of carved out our space as a statewide advocate in connecting the business community to to this work. So we we have used our foundation as as a catapult for this over the last few years.

take it back to Helene for a second and and that the the first fundraising that we did post disaster, we raised about two hundred and sixty thousand dollars in you know the first five or six days after the after the storm. So our foundation board met and and we we tried to figure out what we could do with that kind of money at that time and they said let’s be what we are about and we are about childcare in in our community. So we we were able to take

The majority of those funds and and combine them with another grant that the Spar the Smart Start Agency had and got about two hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars out the door within a few days after the storm to pay off the October tuition debt for families that had children and early child care facilities in our community. that not only freed up short-term cash for those families to address emerging hurricane repair needs, but it also helped make sure that the the

Brandon Burton (11:33.998)
Yeah, yes.

David Jackson (11:39.88)
The business model of early childhood was still intact when everybody came back to work in in November. so we’ve made it now an October tradition to fundraise for a unique project within the early childhood landscape. Last year we did a fundraising project for a child care for child care workers initiative. And this year we just recently announced that we’re doing a one-time retention bonus for.

Brandon Burton (11:39.93)
Okay.

Brandon Burton (11:46.67)
Right.

Brandon Burton (11:58.531)
Well.

David Jackson (12:05.995)
childcare staff that have been at six month, one year, and two year plus increments. And so we’re trying to raise somewhere in the neighborhood of $65,000 to do a one-time retention bonus for those staff members to show them, number one, that the community cares about them, that that they see them. This is often a a very overlooked element of our workforce. But that that two, the the centers can use this as a retention bonus. And as we’re we’re looking at the fluctuation of education professionals at this time of year.

Brandon Burton (12:10.926)
Yeah,

Brandon Burton (12:17.166)
Right.

David Jackson (12:34.555)
those that maybe have enough education and background to get into a teaching assistant position in the county, those those child care centers need to keep that staff. And we we hope that this is an enticement that that can keep folks working, put a little bit more money in their pockets right before the holidays and again show, you know, shine a a a bright spotlight on a very critical element of our workforce here in our community.

Brandon Burton (12:58.944)
Yeah. Just this last weekend I was having a conversation with a a friend and he and his wife are just a young couple and they just had their second child. And they both have their own careers and everything, but now they’re debating, you know, do does the wife go back to work or you know, trying to weigh out the child care costs versus what the income levels are and that’s kind of that threshold where it’s like I it’s so then you’re pulling from the workforce and and all that. So child care is so so important to address.

I’m curious with your approach. Like you talked about the one time retention bonus and the the annual fundraising around childcare. w what kind of childcare facilities would qualify? Is it just any licensed facility within the county or is it like the home daycare places and would they qualify? Like what’s the that threshold?

David Jackson (13:48.658)
Yeah, so it’s a great question. And it and it speaks to how every state is aligned a little bit differently too. So in our case, we are are allocating these funds to licensed care facilities, both the the traditional centers that you think about, but also the in home care centers that also have to go through a licensure you know, qualification here in North Carolina. And, you know, we found when we did child care for child care workers, so I’ll I’ll back up and say that we have always picked for for these

now two years and and even take it to Helene, we have we have picked things that have had some sort of a legislative priority or are a priority of the advocates within the industry. So certainly Helene recovery was at the top of the top of the top of the list back in in October of 2024 throughout Western North Carolina. And there are still some centers that have not reopened yet because of the damage that they sustained during that period of time.

When we when we’ve looked at these last two years, we have gone back to that same advocacy group and said, All right, tell us what your your priorities are. Well, Childcare for Childcare Workers was about having a pilot program where we could and this was this is another program that’s being debated in our our state general assembly now, about funding the the slots that are taken by workers from those facilities. So in some cases, you know, a a center.

staff members taking one of their own children into that same center. And rather than them just giving their paycheck right back to their boss essentially for for the reasons that you just articulated, there there is a push in North Carolina to try to create a fund where those funds could at least be partially subsidized, if not fully paid for, for those staff members. Again, in the in the spirit of workforce retention and recruitment, but also

A healthy stabilizer for the child care business because what we found was that a number of those facility owners were writing that cost off anyway. You’re looking at a business model that has about a 1% profit margin to it. They can’t afford to give away too much. So it does those payments went directly to the centers to offset income that would be coming from the family, and everybody kind of won there. And then we we authored a white paper and sent that to our General Assembly members and said, here’s what we learned.

Brandon Burton (15:50.574)
Yeah.

David Jackson (16:08.827)
And one of the things we learned was that the in-home childcare centers could not take advantage of that because they didn’t really have a staff. there was just one person with about five kids and and so we we were able to help them understand that if that was going to be a legislative priority, there had to be some sort of set aside or carve out or or or at least acknowledgement of the fact that not every business within the industry operates the same way. so so that’s been helpful. It it’s kept us in in

Very close contact with legislators as as we’re looking at at the overall systemic issues there. And another thing I’d point out quickly is the regulatory aspect of this. when and when we think regulation, a lot of people’s minds go straight to safety. There is nothing being discussed in our state about changing the safety standards around how children are cared for. As a matter of fact, it’s going in the other direction and and really leaning into ways that that that children can be cared for as as safely as possible.

But what we have noticed in our state, and we have heard this from other states around us, is the duality of some of this regulation and the contradiction that comes from that. And what I mean by that is we we’ve got a very real scenario here in our county where there is a person that comes in and does the license requirement review for one set of standards. They will then leave the facility, go sit in their car, eat their lunch, come back inside the center.

And judge that same business off of a completely different set of standards for another licensure requirement. And oftentimes those things are contradictory. And we’re talking about things like the the food quality of lunches and and you know some of the the fundamental things around building structure, you know, access points, those things all tie to safety and we don’t want to see any of that change. But but some of the the the paperwork chase that is involved in this industry is

Brandon Burton (17:44.621)
Not

David Jackson (18:02.851)
is enough to to take up one if not two staff members. And again, these are businesses that run very lean because the profit margin is is next to nothing. So so we we are involved in this in the in the foundational sense and trying to support this industry and lend some voice to an industry that doesn’t have time for the voice. We’re we’re fortunate that we have a a well placed board member of ours that is in some of the statewide decisions on one of Governor Stein’s task force initiatives for this.

So we’re able to to to be, you know, kind of at the ground level of some of the substantive conversation that’s coming up in the in the legislative pipeline. And then again, you know, to close this, all of this is being being done to support an industry that supports every other industry here in our community. And anytime there’s a center closure or a hiccup in the system, it snows and the centers close. We find out real quick just how valuable that that business line is to our community, especially a rural community like ours.

Brandon Burton (19:02.19)
Yeah. Well it sounds like you guys have definitely done your homework and you know the the industry, you know, very well. I was gonna say inside and out, but I’m sure there’s some thing you know, still room to to learn more about it, but definitely making an impact there. Let’s let’s shift gears a bit to the other program of work that was submitted around your community resilience fund. If you wanna tell us what that is and how that came to be.

David Jackson (19:25.957)
Yeah, so we we submitted some information about our hurricane response. you know, as as all chambers and and no matter what community you’re in, I wanna shout out Sharifa Jones out in Iowa, who has been just a wonderful resource for us here in North Carolina. they were a few months ahead of us on a disaster claim due to a flood and just being being able to benchmark where they are versus where we’re going. you know, she has been just a wonderful resource. So

Brandon Burton (19:47.319)
It flood, yeah.

David Jackson (19:55.4)
So to shout out to Sharifa. But i in that spirit, you know, as we’re thinking about how we responded to that, both from a monetary standpoint, from an advocacy standpoint, we we are involved. I’m I’m a member of Governor Stein’s task force for Western North Carolina recovery. it’s about, you know, fifty people you know across all kinds of of business scopes as you would imagine. So we

We get a chance on a monthly basis to meet and and chart different areas of of Western North Carolina’s recovery. And then my area of focus is with a number of professionals on the long term economic recovery. One of the things that we have learned in this is that as FEMA is being reshaped in front of us nationally, and really that process started as we were getting started with our recovery here in in Western North Carolina. you know, you can play the timing.

Of that. I think I said on the last episode, never have your natural disaster in the middle of a contentious presidential election. That that’s what we found. We could have written our synopsis on that, right? But but what we found in in the process is that that in our state, communities are going to be tasked with the rapid response element, both from a personal side through the LTRGs, and and any kind of business support is gonna have to come as rapid response from the community itself.

Brandon Burton (20:53.998)
That’s right. Plan for that. Yeah.

David Jackson (21:16.615)
We have we have long noted and and have beaten our heads up against the wall about business support. coming from disaster funding, we have yet to see any kind of federal allocation. We’ve received one state allocation through the governor’s office to a nonprofit that was able to to dole out some funds. But but every time that we’ve gone back to say, hey, you know, we we need to get these businesses back on their feet again so they can continue to create the tax revenue that these local rural communities need to survive, we get

Sorry, we can’t give money directly to to to businesses from the state government. There’s an emoluments clause in North Carolina that prevents that. So all of that said, we have have started working on the local answers. So we we raised about $1.4 million and distributed that through disaster grant funding to small businesses from our chamber. We had a lot of philanthropic interest in that, of course. but we had a lot of donors that that they’re in the onset of the storm.

The heartstrings attachment to our area. It was $10, $25, $100 donations that made up a large pot that we were able to distribute disaster grants through four funding rounds. We are now looking at reshaping that program to be a community resilience and stability program where we know that we’ve got dollars that that we can fundraise for throughout the year. It’s not sexy fundraising, we understand that, but but we want to.

have at least a pool of money to where when the next disaster strikes, whatever that happens to be, we’ve got some deployable funds immediately available to us. And then we can fundraise to refill that off of whatever happened. But it’s it’s just about having rapid action cash that a lot of communities don’t have available to them when a business burns down due to a fire or there is an economic disruption of some sort.

So we’re in the process of migrating our disaster grant program into this more you know kind of 365 day a year evergreen community resilience fund. And then thinking out how we can allocate those funds. So we we anticipate and our foundation board’s working through this now of of you know probably having about 80% of those funds attached to the disaster need and defining what disasters are.

David Jackson (23:32.616)
But then thinking that we’ve got 20% of that funding that can be micro loans or micro grants to the business that is still struggling at a time like this. We have not been dealt any favors economically from our hurricane disaster on top of a difficult winter, on top of gas prices raising, on top of, on top of, in a tourism-dependent economy. So we want to create some things that could be, you know, a microgrant to a business that needs a little bit of a boost.

Could be professional development funding for a group that needs to be trained in a certain way to handle new circumstances. We’ve got some flexibility there. And that that’s really given us some opportunity to dream a bit about what, you know, we could work off the interest on something like that. You know, we’re we’re still kind of in the formative stage of all of that. But the the synopsis that we wrote was that, you know, not only did this was this funding necessary in in the immediate, but we also

all need to think about how these funds are deployed in our community outside of the federally declared disaster. And if the federal government’s not going to declare them in the same way, surely our states are not yet understanding of what that looks like for them. So again, we can’t wait on anybody else. We we’ve got to to create the case that that this kind of funding is needed.

It’s separate from the personal lines that that again are handled by the long-term recovery groups, but very much works in concert with those things. And hopefully we can create a scenario where our community feels like we’ve got a little bit of a of a a tool that we can use until larger help arrives. And and something we did not have before the hurricane. you know, that that kept us from getting resources out for weeks.

Brandon Burton (25:06.136)
Yeah.

Yeah.

David Jackson (25:17.605)
Now we’d like to create a situation where, hey, within a couple of days, we’re stroking a check, we’re helping somebody out and getting them a few steps farther down the road to recovery in a way that does not lock them out from any other funding moving forward.

Brandon Burton (25:32.462)
Yeah. I like the the self reliance aspect of taking care of your community, you know, taking care of your own first and not needing to sit around and wait for federal aid to come in and and hopefully it does come, but you’re not gonna sit around and wait for it. you’d mentioned the go ahead. Yeah.

David Jackson (25:37.405)
Mm-hmm.

David Jackson (25:47.974)
Yeah, and yeah, just just to say real quick, you know, to I I think part of of what we’ve learned in the in the last couple of years and where Sharif has been helpful and and several others around the country that have gone through these kinds of things is is to understand the the level of red tape that exists with all of these programs. Certainly and understandably so. We’re we’re all smart enough in this industry to understand why federal funds have the have the extra hoops to jump through, right?

And some of our state funding is like that. And even some of our local funding, depending on where it’s passing through, gets bogged down in in the the quagmire of paperwork. But what we are hopeful in that we can come up with a trustworthy but simple process where we’re not bogging people down with chasing every piece of paper that they’ve ever, you know, had with their business. There needs to be some truthful understanding of where they are and and why they are in the situation that they’re in.

But we’re hopeful to create a scenario where we’re we’re able to we’re we’re able to get funds to people quickly because we’re taking away some of those barriers. and part of that I I think goes back to the nature of our business and that’s the relationships. to sit around a room where grants are being allocated and say, I know that business and I know their last five-year history and I know that their son is just getting ready to take it over or or what have you.

That’s valuable information that I think that we in our industry take for granted sometimes when when we can just have that kind of top of mind. yes, this is my community. I I understand it and I can get to yes faster because I’ve been paying attention. And and I think so many of us are in that that position where we all have this crazy amount of information in our brains, then we don’t know when we’re gonna need it. Well, you need it at a time like that. And I think that’s where our organization could be very helpful. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Brandon Burton (27:15.598)
Sure.

Brandon Burton (27:35.311)
CRM doesn’t quite carry all that information that’s in your head, right? Yeah. So you had mentioned that the the fundraising for it is not necessarily sexy. And I know, you know, coming out of the the storm, there was the obvious need you could say, you could, you know, have things to point to and say, this is why we’re fundraising, and you get that support of $10 here, $20 there, $1,000, you know, all over the board. But going forward, when you don’t have that.

That initial emotional moment that pulls on the heartstrings, what does that fundraising look like that that is not sexy?

David Jackson (28:11.505)
Yeah, yeah, it’s a great question. And and and it’s an answer that we don’t really have fully addressed yet. we’re in the relationship building stage of that right now. So we’re just shy of two years out from from our disaster. And and again, as we benchmark against other communities that have been through similar things. you know, we’ve got Gatlinburg not far from here from the the fires that they went through you know, several years back now. And talking to some of these professionals and and the businesses around there.

You know, we find that now is the time to make the deep philanthropic relationships work. So our state is actually being helpful with that. The governor’s task force is trying to bring in some national and even international philanthropic efforts to Western North Carolina recovery, but they are doing a great job of making sure that those folks are meeting local contacts on the ground. And as we all know, in the grant funding world, there’s a bucket over here and a bucket over here, and those two buckets can’t pour into the same thing.

But they can pour into similar things. So you might meet somebody that that is controlling bucket number one. And one day they will say, hey, but bucket number two is now available, and that one’s for you. So I I think the the relationship building piece of it is the work that nobody ever sees. it’s the work that you don’t write the press release on, but it is essential to the next step. So we we have been really working that right now, trying to get out in front of people what.

Brandon Burton (29:30.168)
Yeah.

David Jackson (29:36.232)
the true conditions are on the ground. And I’ve I’ve found that that’s the toughest message to communicate. It’s the, you know, the the the road is fixed, the the ground may be healed over a little bit, and people can’t see necessarily as easily the impacts of that that disaster from two years ago. But we all in this industry know that the economic ramifications from that kind of disruption take years to to get over. And we’re in the middle of that right now.

We we’ve got businesses that that any disruption is a magnified disruption. We had a rainy Memorial Day weekend. That really put a damper on our retail and and and tourism based industries. We had snow on every Friday in January. That that does not work well for the ski industry here because the roads were not accessible for people to get to to the area. you know, so we’ve had to fight some curveballs off and and foul a few pitches off, but we’re we’re hopeful that through relationship equity.

Brandon Burton (30:12.302)
Yeah.

David Jackson (30:30.739)
Through our state continuing to support the region, we can we can make some of the relationships that we’ll then decide to learn more about our communities. And then we get into storytelling mode, which we we all know we can flip that switch on and and we’re all passionate about the things that our community needs. And that that’s what we’re hoping is the next step in in all of this. And and are starting to make some inroads in that direction.

Brandon Burton (30:52.278)
Yeah, very good. But I love how both of these programs show that you guys have day you know, a vision for the future.

You guys are creating that roadmap going forward to make sure that your business community and the local economy there is going to be as sound as possible because of the efforts that the chamber is making. So kudos to you guys for being that you know foresight kind of thinking. as we begin to wrap things up, I wanted to ask you on behalf of those listening, what kind of tip or action item would you leave for the chamber out there listening who wants to take their organization up to the next level?

David Jackson (31:29.821)
Yeah, that’s a great question too. We, you know, we’re going back to the the chamber of the year finalist piece, you know, we we set into that process to learn. we we had just gone through a a program here in North Carolina called Family Forward, which is a certification that you can get if you have some HR principles for the most part that are in alignment with Family Forward practices and policies. Everything from making sure that you’re offering maternity and paternity leave, to to how your your

Dealing with all kinds of staff retention initiatives and things along those lines. So when we went through that process, we got certified, but we saw some things that we wanted to change. And that led us down a road with policies and procedures. And then that led us down a road of membership retention and recruitment and some of our internal chamber strategies. So when it got to time for the for the ACCE submissions, we thought, well, we’ve done a lot of work. Let’s just see where we are. Let’s see how we benchmark against some other peer organizations.

And and we were we’re gonna rely on that feedback. And you know, little did we know that that we got to this stage, but we are as excited to get to New Orleans to learn as much as anything. And I think that’s my my advice is to go into it hoping to get better through the process, whether you get selected, whether you whether you and that this could be your state organizations or or any type of way that you can say, are we on the right path?

And can we judge that against organizations that do something similarly? Because there really are no organizations like ours. It’s not like you can look down the street and say, hey, you know, there’s a building business in the building next door. Let’s see how our sales match up. That’s not what the chambers are. So I I think it’s one of the the most helpful things with with ACCE has been to do that with like peer sets. And and you know, whether that’s budget,

type of community, size of population, all those types of things, to be able to go in and look under the hood and say, hey, yeah, we do these things really well. But here’s some areas that we can learn from some others on on how we can just get better as an organization. And as I mentioned, we’ve had a lot of change here in the last four years. added staff, new building, new foundation, hurricane recovery. It’s time for us to take that look and say, where are we? And and how can we become the chamber of the future, knowing that that

David Jackson (33:48.988)
some of the the the methods and and methodology of the past is no longer no longer gonna be something that we can count on. you know, so that that’s part of the process. I think if you enter into it with that that constant mindset of nothing is nothing is sacred, everything deserves to look under the hood every once in a while and you can get better for that. I think that’s what we’re most excited about being involved in this process.

Brandon Burton (34:12.27)
I think that’s great advice and it’s a great perspective to take, you know, going into this this kind of process. I know I’ve asked you before when you were on the show, but I like asking, you know, whenever I have somebody on the show, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

David Jackson (34:28.007)
You know, I think my answer has changed in the last six months. you know, we are in a very odd economic time around the country, and and I think everybody’s got their version of this right now. we are in a tourism dependent area though we are trying to diversify our economy. And I think I touched on that last time that we’ve had two major disruptions in the last six years that have shown us what major pieces of our com are are or what our community looks like when major pieces are turned off.

We are a in a university town with Appalachian State. When the university goes away and tourism goes away, we become very quiet and and very, very isolated. so we have been thinking about that economic diversification at a time where everything costs more. So while we’re championing the business startup and the entrepreneurial effort and and trying to get some of that intellectual property off of campus and into businesses, we know that we’re encouraging people to do this at a time that it costs more than ever to do these things.

Brandon Burton (34:55.788)
Yeah.

David Jackson (35:24.941)
And I think that that the the future version of the chamber world has to be one where you’re getting the real time information and reacting off of that real time look. I I don’t think that we can sit here and say today, I I know I can’t, from from R C what our community’s going to look like three hundred and sixty five days from now. There are a lot of ifs that come into that, more so than ever that I’ve experienced in the ten years of being in this job.

We have to be really good at anticipating the if scenarios and helping people see, all right, here’s option A or here’s what could happen if these things fall into place and here’s option B and so on and so forth. And not do that as a scare tactic by any stretch, but but helping people, taking that that helpful nurturing nature of ourselves and and being just a little bit more detailed with that. And being able to go to a business and say, all right, if we

If we have a strong summer, this is what you’re looking at in terms of size of events or whatever your thing might be. And if we take a step back, here are some tools and resources that we can go ahead and get introduced to you. It’s so much more personal and people are tired. In a community that’s gone through COVID and a natural disaster, people are short, they are frustrated, they’re tired of being in this same place of kind of spinning wheels. And we have to be kind of the psychologists.

To say it’s okay. Everybody else is dealing with this and we can help you. But we’ve got to be able to match the help that the moment needs, not what a book 10 years ago told us about, because that that book is no longer valid. I think there’s been some some great conversation within the industry on your podcast and and other other sources that are encouraging us to think about how we evolve. And I I think that conversation is

Brandon Burton (36:51.672)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (37:03.0)
Right.

David Jackson (37:14.619)
As relevant as it’s ever been. And I’m looking forward to getting to New Orleans and hearing where other people are with that. Because that I think this is a real critical time, once again, for us to prove our worth, like we did back during COVID. Whatever the next six months looks like or the next year looks like, you know, as we we head closer to the midterms, we have an opportunity to be the industry that helps people make sense of it all. And I think if we’re committed to that, we’re we’re gonna come out on the other side even stronger than we’ve

Brandon Burton (37:21.528)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (37:40.758)
I love that response. Very, very good. well, David, before I let you go, I want to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and learn more about how you guys are doing things there in Boone. Where would you point them and what would be the best way to come?

David Jackson (37:54.161)
Yeah, sure. So Boonechamber.com is our address. Don’t confuse us with Boone, Iowa. we we get calls for each other all the time and we we have a good relationship there. we’re all named after the same guy. So, you know, celebrate Daniel Boone in whatever part of the country that you would like to. but we are Boone, North Carolina. Boonechamber.com is our address. You can learn more about what we’re doing with our foundation. and anybody that that would like to to have a a quick chat and

Brandon Burton (38:01.998)
Yeah, better.

David Jackson (38:21.543)
Talk a little bit about initiatives. And if you’ve got advice for us, we’re we’re all ears for it. But we we love talking with people in the profession. Again, we all know that that this is a small world, a small universe. I’ve got my IOM shirt on here. Shout out Tucson class four getting ready to to head out there to finish things up this year. But w we know that the more we talk and communicate, you know, the stronger that we all are. And I I’m so thankful for our Western North Carolina Chamber.

Brandon Burton (38:34.881)
Yeah, yeah.

David Jackson (38:49.531)
brethren that have have helped shepherd us through this time and and for all of the people that have poured into us over the last couple of years, we’re here today because of that. And we want to be that resource to anybody else that that we can ever help. So just reach out anytime. And Brandon, always great to talk to you and and continued best of luck with the podcast and know that we’re out there listening every week.

Brandon Burton (39:10.784)
I appreciate that so much. And best of luck to you and your team and again congratulations being selected as a chamber of the year finalist. yeah, good luck in New Orleans.

David Jackson (39:18.781)
Thank you very much.

Collaborative Launch with Matt Pivarnik

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Brandon Burton (00:01.238)
Hello Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host Brandon Burton. And here on the podcast, I introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Our guest for this episode is Matt Pivarnik Matt is the CEO of the Greater Myrtle Beach Collaborative, an organization that brings together the diverse portfolio of community, tourism, economic development initiatives, including the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, Visit Myrtle Beach and the Myrtle Beach Regional

Sports Alliance. With a career dedicated to transforming communities, Matt has led numerous high-impact leadership roles. He’s held numerous high-impact leadership roles across the country. Prior to his current position, he served for a decade as the CEO of the Greater Topeka Partnership, where he led a unified model over a dozen organizations focused on economic growth and regional development.

Matt’s leadership extends nationally, having served as chair of the Chamber of Commerce Executives of Kansas, chair of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Organization Management, National Board of Trustees, and in multiple advisory board roles supporting chamber excellence and economic strategy. He’s a CCE and currently serves in the ACCE Board of Directors. A graduate of Northeastern State University with a degree in business management, Matt has also completed

executive programs through the Center for Creative Leadership and the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative. Beyond his professional accomplishments, Matt is also the founder of MAKO a regional network for economic development leaders and chamber executives, and he remains deeply committed to community impact. He and his wife Wendy recently relocated to Myrtle Beach and are proud parents and grandparents with a strong family legacy rooted in service, leadership, and

contribution. But Matt, I’m excited to have you back on Chamber Chat podcast. This is a treat to have you back on the show. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Matt Pivarnik (02:12.49)
Yeah. Chamber champions, economic development champions, tourism development champions. That’s my tribe, right? And so hi to everybody. Uh, I always, there’s almost a little bit of an intimidating opportunity with Brandon, uh, because it’s, I know that all, lot of smart people watch this podcast. so Brandon, it’s really good to be with you. I think the last time that we connected like this, I was in Topeka, Kansas in a role that, uh, pretty amazing person, Molly Howey is in that role now.

that couldn’t be more proud of her.

Brandon Burton (02:44.578)
Yeah.

Just for perspective, I was back in episode 102. So if anybody wants to go back and check that out, this is episode 385. So we’ve come a long ways, but go back and see Matt from 2001. Check out that past episode. tell us a little bit about the Greater Myrtle Beach Collaborative. I know we’ll focus a lot on the formation of the collaborative, but just high level size, staff, scope of work, budget, things like that.

Matt Pivarnik (02:57.215)
Very cool.

Matt Pivarnik (03:13.386)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (03:15.33)
stage for us.

Matt Pivarnik (03:15.818)
Well, the collaborative was was actually officially created in April and it was one of those things that I never imagined that I would move to the Myrtle Beach region in 2025 and then in 2026 be launching really a new structure and a new organization. What I found when I got here is that my board, they were ready to go. And so I’m a bit of a change agent and they were too. And so that was, that was helpful. I would say

Our staff is right around the 50 mark. We have multiple organizations working together here. We have a fairly significant budget. have a good sized budget, bigger than most because I think when people think about Myrtle Beach, they don’t understand that when it comes to room nights and how many hotels we have and just the lodging that we have in this community, I mean it rivals Nashville and Orlando and Los

So it is a very, very, very big tourism market. So I almost hesitate to talk about our budget. I think this year that we’re in right now, it’s probably somewhere in the $80 million, the $90 million mark. But again, those aren’t dollars that we get to use to operate. A lot of those dollars are used to market this destination that ends up with $18 to $20 million.

Brandon Burton (04:22.367)
All right.

Matt Pivarnik (04:39.826)
Visitors a year that come to this destination. So we have a really strong chamber Our chamber has great brand equity in Columbia in Washington DC With a really good working relationship here. So So yeah, it’s it’s it’s it’s very similar to what I had in Tulsa very similar to what I had in in Topeka, Kansas and that is multiple Community and economic development organizations all agreeing to be on one team

and doing this community and economic development thing together.

Brandon Burton (05:14.198)
Yeah, that is awesome. That definitely helps to set the stage. I think it makes a whole lot of sense. we’ll dive in deeper on that about how the collaborative form, but to be able to really align all those efforts together under one purpose and one direction. So we’ll dive in much deeper on that as soon as we get back from this quick break.

Brandon Burton (05:36.879)
All right, Matt, we’re back from the break, but I wanted to dive in deeper on the collaborative. So you mentioned it very similar to what you had when you were at the Tulsa Chamber and Greater Topeka Partnership. we covered a similar topic when you were on the show before talking about the arrangement there in Topeka. But tell us there specific to Myrtle Beach, how did the collaborative come to be? I can only imagine it getting everybody

involved and on the same bus, as they say, getting them the right people in the right seats on the bus. How did all that come together?

Matt Pivarnik (06:17.822)
You know, I actually did not realize this when I was going through the process, you know, that courtship, that two-way courtship of maybe coming to a community. And I didn’t realize this, but what I found is, and I found this overall, is that there are a lot of people across the United States that are just fascinated with the model of the Greater Topeka Partnership. So I knew that that model would be a great model in Myrtle Beach. What I didn’t know is that the leadership, the elected leaders, the private sector leaders,

of this community, they were also eyeballing that model. so what I found is I found a community that was hungry, hungry to create more collaboration and create more collaboration between the economic and community development organizations. So I thought that we would be creating something like the Greater Myrtle Beach Collaborative in 2027 or 2028. And lo and behold, we ended up creating it in April of 2026.

It came together nicely. I pinched myself a little bit because I got to arrive in this community at the exact same time that this community was making a decision that we’re all going to work better together and that a rising tide raises all ships. I mean, we represent a lot of municipalities. It’s a big, big, big MSA. And so the lo and behold, we now have the greater Myrtle beach collaborative and we’ve built this organization that has shared service.

Brandon Burton (07:38.35)
Yeah.

Matt Pivarnik (07:47.596)
so that we can share our resources no matter what vertical we’re working on in the community.

Brandon Burton (07:54.681)
Yeah. So who drives that conversation? Because each of these organizations, many of them have their own boards. They all have their own staff. They all have their own areas of work that they’re involved with. So to get that collaboration and to really drive the conversation forward to be able to have something tangible come out of it, who drives that conversation?

Matt Pivarnik (08:01.844)
Yes. Yeah.

Matt Pivarnik (08:13.962)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s interesting. I actually, I personally, I’m the CEO of the collaborative and then we have presidents of different organizations. I actually worked for the collaborative board. And so the collaborative board is, is, is really kind of that parent company, sort of the young brands, know, of, economic and community development. So, so that’s, so that’s who I work for. Recently, I was in a board meeting and it was the collaborative board meeting. I always like to say,

I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out. I went to a collaborative board meeting and a visit Myrtle Beach board meeting broke out, And so, that’s, they’re well within their rights because they care about all of these organizations. But really who drives it is there’s a collaborative board that I work for. That board is actually made up of board members from the other entity boards that come together and make up that board. We also have a lot of ex officios on our board. So we’re not afraid to have

elected officials in our room and on all of our boards we have ex officio board members. There’s a visit Myrtle Beach board, there’s a chamber board, there’s a partnership grand strand board, which is our economic development foundation that kind of supports our other organizations. And then we have a host of other organizations. So what we find is, that each person stays in their vertical lane. So the visit Myrtle Beach board definitely drives the tourism narrative, right? And the chamber board is definitely driving that.

legislative success program. And so each board has their part that they’re doing and they’re really driving that leadership. They’re not subservient to that collaborative board in any way, or form. They’re really just collaborating with the collaborative board. so it sounds messy, but it actually is very beautiful. And every once in a while, we will have a board meeting and we’ll have to just say, hey, you know what?

Matt Pivarnik (10:15.4)
That’s a great point. Let’s take that up at the next chamber board meeting because that’s really an initiative that the chamber would drive. And you know what? You are actually welcome to come and be a guest at that board meeting so that you can make your voice heard there. it’s a beautiful set of messiness that works for collaboration.

Brandon Burton (10:37.582)
So I picture the collaborative board meetings being more high level. Here’s the big vision for the area, what we would like to see happen. And then kind of those marching orders go back to the individual boards for each organization within the collaborative, is that correct?

Matt Pivarnik (10:44.008)
Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Pivarnik (10:55.08)
Yeah, the collaborative board actually, they manage me, right? They manage me. They look at overall community strategy.

Brandon Burton (10:59.298)
Yeah.

Matt Pivarnik (11:04.406)
They also manage the finance and administration portion of this entity that we call the Greater Myrtle Beach Collaborative. And so I would say that the collaborative board is at 50,000 feet and they’re looking down at 50,000 feet. When you get into those other boards, they’re in the five to 20,000 foot range and they’re really digging in to the details of what each of those verticals are working on. I will say one thing, before we created this,

Brandon Burton (11:16.579)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (11:25.258)
Thanks.

Brandon Burton (11:29.922)
Yeah.

Matt Pivarnik (11:33.756)
If you came to what was referred to as the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, which actually house all of those different organizations, if you came to that board meeting, what you would find is while we were talking about government affairs, legislative success, what you would find is that our tourism leaders were in a way maybe checking their emails on their phones, right?

But our universities and our bankers and you know other you know the the non-tourism people were really tuned in and they were really dialed in our construction companies and then when you when you started talking about tourism related issues What you would find is when you talk about tourism related issues those other folks would be a little bit more checked out Now what you find is because we’re staying so focused

No one’s checked out. Everybody is really they have their sleeves rolled up and they’re really dialed into it whatever we’re talking about

Brandon Burton (12:27.83)
Yeah, so it’s probably good to talk about the different organizations that make up the collaborative in general. So we know the Chamber of Commerce visit Myrtle Beach talked about the, I’m gonna get the name wrong, but the sports group. Tell us what, and the economic development, Grand Strand.

Matt Pivarnik (12:44.052)
Yeah, right.

Matt Pivarnik (12:49.162)
Okay, I would say that the primary organizations as of now, so we’ve actually built this collaborative to where we could bring other organizations in in the future if they so wish. It’s not something that we’re out there seeking. We’ve got a lot on our plate, but we are definitely built for shared services and built for collaboration. And we’re in talks with multiple organizations right now about potentially joining the collaborative. Right now, the collaborative

Brandon Burton (13:07.884)
Yeah.

Matt Pivarnik (13:19.116)
is the 501C6 organization that’s the holding company. We have Visit Myrtle Beach, we have the Chamber of Commerce, we have Partnership Grand Strand, which is a foundation that’s working on community development, economic development, different things. We do have a great county partner in economic development right now that’s not officially part of the collaborative, but is unofficially one of our closest confidence and allies. We have a sports authority.

We’re in the process of actually creating a true sports commission. So that is definitely part of the collaborative. We run leadership grand strand out of the collaborative. So it’s a multi-community leadership program, grand strand young professionals, which is a workforce initiative. And I’m probably forgetting some, but really it’s, and we’re actually right now as a community driving a community strategy called

elaborate 2031 and that’s you know 14 different communities really driving the strategy and we’re actually partnered with AHA advisors Amy Holloway with AHA advisors working on that project.

Brandon Burton (14:20.078)
Okay.

Brandon Burton (14:30.094)
Okay, very good. So you brought up an interesting point with the individual board meetings for the different organizations and certain board members maybe check out, know, and certain topics aren’t aligned with tourism and they, you know, run a hotel or something. So do you see or do you anticipate a change in the makeup of those individual boards, you know, being more focused on that individual organization?

Matt Pivarnik (14:57.276)
Yeah, we’re working on that. know, over time we’re definitely going to work on that. We want our tourism leaders to be part of the Chamber Board. mean, the Chamber, tourism is a huge industry, obviously, in the Grand Strand and in the Myrtle Beach region. So yeah, over time, it will be one of those things that as we curate our boards going forward, over time, I see that those will shift as we’re learning how to live as a true collaborative. but right now, I mean,

Brandon Burton (15:04.961)
Right.

Matt Pivarnik (15:27.18)
just the bylaws alone, that’s, mean, getting a partnership or a collaborative or an alliance set up, that first year bringing together so many administrative things and making sure that your bylaws are right. But my guess is I bet every quarter we will have tweaks to our bylaws while we’re working at making sure that this collaborative is really setting us up for future success.

Brandon Burton (15:56.749)
That it makes sense. It also sounds tough to constantly be looking at the bylaws and making the changes because.

Matt Pivarnik (15:58.314)
Thank

Matt Pivarnik (16:03.422)
Well, the nominating process, like, it’s like draft day around here, right? We, we start, we start our nominating process on tax day. So back in April, you know, we actually literally started our process. And what I find is all the different boards are saying, I want that person on my board. I want that person. And they almost race to have their nominating committee meetings first. And so even the nominating process is really interesting because everybody’s looking for that community talent to be on their boards.

Brandon Burton (16:07.564)
Right.

Matt Pivarnik (16:33.356)
And I think this time I’ve made sure that the collaborative nominating committee comes first just before the rest of those organizations. It worked out that way from a calendar standpoint. I did not force that to happen, but that’s the way it’s gonna happen.

Brandon Burton (16:40.265)
Hehehehe

Brandon Burton (16:47.34)
Yeah, that’s great. So I’ve seen in other communities where maybe a chamber wants to merge with an economic development organization in their community or tourism agency because they’re all separate, but they’re afraid they’re going to step on toes. So they’re going to push somebody out of a job or overstep another board.

So how do you do it in a cohesive way to be able to say, we’re all working towards a very similar purpose. Let’s align our efforts, share resources, make this more cohesive.

Matt Pivarnik (17:21.438)
Yeah, can actually, it’s actually a good exercise to go through because what you want to do is if everybody has, if their North Star is let’s do what’s best for this community.

And if that becomes everybody’s North Star, then egos go away. Egos have to go away, right? And I think that that is the key is that once everybody realizes let’s do what’s absolutely 100 % best for our community, even if it might not be the best thing for maybe me personally or a certain staff member or a board or a certain organization is just use that North Star. And it really does work out if everybody just sets the…

mindset and there have been some attempts in the United States to merge some organizations and that completely makes sense. Brandon, if you knew, you know, some of the ones I was talking about and that they never actually got across the finish line and I’m not going to say who that was. I never would do that, but it was egos that killed it. Egos.

Brandon Burton (18:18.67)
I’m going to share it.

Yeah, yeah. And I’ve seen the successful merge and for some, know, even just two chambers maybe merging together. Like you’re only going to have one chamber executive, right? So in the end, maybe one of them stays on as staff for a while or maybe moves to different community or something. But

Matt Pivarnik (18:30.601)
Yeah.

Matt Pivarnik (18:40.286)
You know, you know I like to celebrate? I think that so many organizations like the Greater Myrtle Beach Collaborative or One Spartanburg Inc or the Greater Topeka Partnership, people that have done it in the last five to 10 years, get a lot of credit, right? A lot of credit. I think the credit goes to the Tulsa, Oklahoma’s and the Oklahoma cities and you know, the Greater Houston Partnership. The communities that you have out there.

that actually resisted the urge to break up in the first place, right? Because most of you go back to the 70s and 80s, most of these entities were together under one chamber of commerce organization. And a lot of them just, they stayed the course and they didn’t break up. And I think they deserve so much credit, but it’s all these new entities that are being created that are getting all of the love. I think that they’re the ones that deserve the love.

Brandon Burton (19:12.64)
Right.

Brandon Burton (19:34.006)
Yeah, well I love with the format that you guys have set up to be able to be welcoming to other organizations that that makes sense to be part of the collaborative and move things forward and just keeping that that open mind and moving the Myrtle Beach area forward.

Matt Pivarnik (19:50.378)
Well, I think one of the things, one of the things that’s beautiful here, and we didn’t create this in Myrtle Beach, right? It actually other organizations created this is this notion of having these separate boards. We are, we are staying in our verticals and where we’re doing our, we’re doing our job, but at the same time, we roll up into a collaborative. I think that’s beautiful. And quite frankly, I think that the Allegheny conference in Pittsburgh was a, they were the, a great model that, that I know that when I was in.

in Topeka and in Tulsa that we studied that model.

Brandon Burton (20:24.366)
Yeah. So talk to us a little bit about the shared services, because I think that’s huge with the alignment to be able to bring it all together and be able to have that vision. Yeah. What all do you share?

Matt Pivarnik (20:28.65)
Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. It’s not easy.

It’s not easy. Okay. So I will say the entities here, they share me. I’m a shared service. So today I will be doing some things for, I think today on this, on this day specifically, I think I’m doing something for four of our organizations. So I’m shared. Finance is shared. Our CFO is shared and our whole finance team. Obviously we have a fairly large finance team because we are entrusted with so many, so many public dollars. Our marketing and communications.

Brandon Burton (20:55.266)
Okay.

Matt Pivarnik (21:06.89)
This is one where it gets really sticky in organizations, right? But marketing, communications and PR. So almost taking all of the talent from each of these organizations, putting them together and say, you are now the MarCom PR organization. So like an internal agency. Another one that is awesome, that really is great is revenue generation. So resource development, fundraising, making sure that when members join,

Brandon Burton (21:33.102)
you

Matt Pivarnik (21:36.772)
now members join the Greater Myrtle Beach Collaborative, hey it’s really cool because you’re a member of multiple organizations, not just one organization, but if we need to go out and raise money for sponsorships or for investment in a specific initiative, you can centralize that fundraising or that resource development. So there’s even like data in economics and having an economist, most of these entities would not be able to have a really good

Brandon Burton (21:55.279)
and what happens next. That’s the end of my talk.

Matt Pivarnik (22:06.506)
staff, but a research collaborative that will do this for that purpose is really awesome. And then things like space, like a really nice boardroom. We’re in the process of building an incredible boardroom that is bigger than the boardroom that we have right now. And guess what? Multiple boardrooms. Use that boardroom to take it to other places.

Brandon Burton (22:15.726)
Yeah

Brandon Burton (22:28.662)
Yeah, that’s a great synopsis of lot of those shared services. I can imagine, like you said, the marketing PR can get a little sticky. know content creators, have their content calendar, right?

Matt Pivarnik (22:40.819)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (22:47.606)
I imagine they have to kind of still have a little bit of a silo of, this is tourism, this is whatever. So they can’t look at the calendar as a whole and say, well, we already have three things going out. They can look more specific at what’s the purpose.

Matt Pivarnik (22:47.892)
The heath?

Matt Pivarnik (22:52.436)
They do.

Matt Pivarnik (23:00.318)
Yeah. But what’s really cool.

is especially between economic development, chamber of commerce and tourism organizations. A lot of the collateral and usually tourism organizations are the ones that are well funded and they can do some really cool marketing, right? And where’s chambers, they’re not as well funded. And so they’re having to bootstrap their marketing budgets. What’s really cool is a lot of what a visitor’s bureau can create is really good marketing for a chamber of commerce, a leadership.

Brandon Burton (23:18.434)
Yeah.

Matt Pivarnik (23:33.372)
and economic development organization. So actually sharing that collateral, sharing that public relations muscle and that power, it’s pretty cool. And it also gets communities aligned where they don’t have a brand demolition. it literally is consistency and brand.

Brandon Burton (23:51.437)
Yeah.

Matt Pivarnik (23:55.594)
And so I think it works. just takes a little while to make sure that each entity is getting the love that they deserve from that shared MarCom PR group.

Brandon Burton (24:06.55)
Yeah, yeah, that’s a great point between tourism and also I’ve seen in communities where economic development can do some really cool marketing stuff where chambers have to bootstrap and get a little more creative with how they get the messaging out. But when you have it all there together, they can all be supportive of each other. I like that. So I think it’s safe to assume that you’re a fan of this type of a model coming from Tulsa to Peek, I mean, where it fits, where it makes sense, right?

Matt Pivarnik (24:17.662)
Yeah. Right.

Matt Pivarnik (24:33.17)
Yeah, I didn’t know how much of a fan I was until I left Tulsa and went to Topeka and didn’t have it and I realized what I missed. So yes, I’m a fan of it. I’m a fan of things that make sense, common sense, right? And so it just makes sense. So I’m a big fan of being smart and doing things in a smart way. So that makes me a fan of this model.

Brandon Burton (24:46.914)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (24:54.102)
Like that. So for anyone listening who’s like, man, this sounds great. I want to try to do something like this in our community. What kind of pitfalls do you need to watch out for? What do you just need to be aware of before you embark on something like this?

Matt Pivarnik (25:11.558)
that it’s messy at first and that it takes a while. Then even once the organization is actually created, it’s even a little messy for a little while. When you start bringing organizations that are separate organizations, benefits are different, providers are different, CRMs are different. So that’s one thing is it’s just a little messy. Even just going through the bylaws process is a little bit messy. It’s kind of like, to me, it’s like building an F1 car. The engineers and

and all those people are there in the garage. That race is actually one in the garage. It’s not one on the track. And so you’re building this F1 car. Once you have that F1 car built, then you’re gonna be able to win races, right? And then the other thing is the pitfall is just that ego thing. Egos from boards, egos from staff and things like that. I had a dear, dear friend in a community in the northern part of the United States that created a multi-organization alliance. And my dear friend,

Brandon Burton (25:48.236)
Yeah.

Matt Pivarnik (26:10.754)
She thought that she would end up being the CEO of that multi organization community development alliance. And she didn’t end up getting that role. They ended up doing a national search and they brought somebody else in. Two years later, she said that was the best thing that this community could have done for this community. so there are some pitfalls. There are some things to look out for. Make sure staff’s not leading it.

Brandon Burton (26:29.582)
Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s huge. So you brought up an interesting point with like benefits and CRMs being different is the goal to.

Matt Pivarnik (26:35.658)
Make sure it’s the community leaders have to want it. If it’s the staff wanting this, that’s going to be a tough one to work. The community has to really want it.

Matt Pivarnik (26:51.55)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (26:54.056)
eventually align them all to be the same or do you continue operating differently for some period of time for a transition period? Yeah.

Matt Pivarnik (27:00.126)
You have to, yeah, you have to continue. there are, there are some CRM companies that are really good. And right now it’d be a weird time to be doing too much, too much work on CRM because AI is probably going to change the way that CRM is going to work in the future. But yeah, the different platforms, the different audiences, things like that. You just, it’s, it’s kind of like, it’s really like getting married and just kind of figuring out like, I like this toothpaste. You like that toothpaste. Eventually where you.

Brandon Burton (27:25.111)
Yeah.

Matt Pivarnik (27:30.06)
gonna have to have separate toothpaste which is okay or maybe we can come together and use the same toothpaste. think CRMs are kind of like that.

Brandon Burton (27:38.347)
Yeah, that makes sense. But it’s all the details that once you get into it, you realize, we’ve got to figure this out. Anything else about having an alliance or collaborative that you think is worth mentioning for those listening, just to be aware of or think about going forward?

Matt Pivarnik (27:47.902)
Yeah.

Matt Pivarnik (27:53.864)
No.

Matt Pivarnik (27:59.368)
I could talk about it all day. I think you would be hard pressed to find anybody that’s either those people that deserve all the credit that stayed together or organizations that have built like one Spartanburg Inc. I think if you called their elected officials, their community leaders, and their staff leaders, they would all say, yeah, this is definitely the way to do business for the betterment of your region and your community and your economy.

Brandon Burton (28:26.69)
Yeah, well, I’ve got a couple of questions. I like asking every guest that I have on the show. So first one is for those listening who are trying to take their organization up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item would you share with them as they strive towards that goal?

Matt Pivarnik (28:29.8)
Yeah. Cool.

Matt Pivarnik (28:43.274)
If you’re trying to take your organization or your community to the next goal, there’s a couple things one is Make sure that your core values of your organization are so crystal clear and that you remind yourself on a daily Basis what your core values are

Hire to those core values and be ready to fire to those core values and constantly remind your community the core values you live by. There are a lot of opportunities for you to be able to say no because things don’t align with your core values.

I’d say in our business, one of your core values better be an absolute passion and love for your community. Otherwise, that’s a big miss. And then the other thing too is I would say on a more micro level, personal level, make sure that have your personal core values aligned with your organization’s core values and be working on your staff, your employees, and yourself to try to make sure that you’re the best leader possible for your community.

Brandon Burton (29:25.623)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (29:48.663)
I think that’s a great tip. As we look to the future of Chambers of Commerce, and I you’re an ACC board, how do you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward?

Matt Pivarnik (30:01.674)
Actually, I’m past ACC board member. think I’ve been on every board in the industry. And so sometimes they ask me to come back and I’m like, yeah, it’s like you’re retraining a tire. I would say the future, and I’m going to be very specific to chambers, but you know, if you’ve seen one chamber, you’ve seen one chamber. So when I say chamber, I’m talking chambers, economic development, destination development, community development organizations.

Brandon Burton (30:03.486)
That’s right.

Brandon Burton (30:11.042)
That’s right.

Brandon Burton (30:16.14)
Yeah.

Matt Pivarnik (30:25.416)
The future is ACC, and I really like Sherry Ann puts out the Edelman Trust Barometer. Right now, we’re an entity that is still trusted in America. And take that level of trust and take that passion that you have for the community and know this, Chambers cannot take a day off, a week off, or a month off.

What we’re working on is literally setting the prosperity projection for your community for decades and decades and decades. And so if you’re not good, you’re actually, you’re causing harm to the very people that live in your community. If you’re good and if you’re passionate and you take your job very seriously knowing that everybody’s relying on you.

you’re actually creating prosperity for the children in your community, their prosperity in the future, and their children and their children. It is that important. And I think that chambers need to just remember, this is not a career, this is not a job.

This is a mission and it’s as important as public health and public safety because we’re creating that prosperity that drives the success and social determinants of health in community.

Brandon Burton (31:44.716)
Man, I want to record that like we are and share that with every new Chamber Exec who gets hired, right? That’s awesome. Well, Matt, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who might want to reach out and connect with you, learn more about how you’ve done this, or just dig in a little bit deeper maybe on anything you’ve mentioned today.

Matt Pivarnik (31:48.746)
Sure. Yeah.

Matt Pivarnik (32:04.766)
Yeah, the best way right now, my guess is it’ll change, but they’ll keep this one hot for a while, is matt.pivarnik@visitmyrtlebeach.com. I know that doesn’t represent the entire collaborative, but I want every time someone sees my email address, I want them to think about visiting Myrtle Beach. the other thing is, that I know that probably everybody that’s watching this will probably consider or is considering right now making a trip here. Make sure if you do, just look me up and let’s have

cup of coffee or lunch or something like that. Maybe even play golf. This is the golf capital of the world. 80 golf courses. yeah, find me. The best way right now is email and find me and I’m happy to be connected with you. Learn from you and then if you have something to learn from me then we both benefited there.

Brandon Burton (32:40.226)
Right?

Brandon Burton (32:53.783)
Yeah, Myrtle Beach is a beautiful area and I’ll add to that just to get people there and visit and check it out and look Matt up. But Matt, this has been awesome to have you back on the podcast. Thank you for setting aside some time and sharing your experience with us. It’s so valuable to hear what’s been successful, what’s working for you guys there in Myrtle Beach and thanks for being a part of the show.

Matt Pivarnik (33:03.475)
It’s paradise.

Matt Pivarnik (33:17.47)
Yeah, thanks for remembering me, Brandon. I appreciate it.

Workforce Development Tactics with Josh Cross

Below is an auto-generated transcription. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

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Brandon Burton (00:01.218)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton. And here on the podcast, I introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Our guest for this episode is Josh Cross. With more than 20 years of experience spanning city planning, economic development, and Chamber leadership, Josh is a driving force behind business and community advancement in San Luis Obispo County.

A lifelong resident of the region, he brings both professional expertise and a deep understanding of the local landscape. Josh began his career in urban design and planning, nearly 18 years with RRM Design Group.

During that time, he led and contributed to a wide range of projects, including general plans, community and specific master plans, trail systems, design guidelines, entitlement processes, and entitlement processing efforts throughout California.

He later transitioned into the Paso Robles Chamber of Commerce as Director of Economic Development, where he advanced initiatives focused on business retention, expansion, and attraction. In 2020, Josh became the CEO of the Atascadero Chamber of Commerce. Under his leadership, the organization has doubled its membership and grown its annual budget from approximately $460,000 to over $1.1 million, while expanding staff and services.

initiatives including the launch of Get Your Business Online, expansion of workforce development services, and growth of the Bridgework co-working space as a regional entrepreneurial hub. His leadership earned him the WACE Rusty Hammer Award.

Brandon Burton (01:50.538)
Josh remains actively engaged in the region and industry and leadership serving on the SLO County Workforce Development Board and the Central Coast Zoo Foundation and the WACE Board and Executive Committee, where he helps to shape the future of the chamber profession. Let’s welcome Josh Cross to Chamber Chat podcast. Josh, I’m excited to have you on the show with us today and we’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the chamber champions who are out there listening and to share

something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you little better.

Josh Cross (02:23.419)
Hi, Brandon. Hello, Chamber Champions. First off, Brandon, what an honor to be asked to be on your podcast. I’m just really thrilled to shine a light on the work that we do here in Atascadero and just shine a light on Atascadero in general. just a small community of 30,000 people, but I like to say that we have a freakishly large chamber for a community of our size with almost 700 members.

Brandon Burton (02:51.434)
Thank

Josh Cross (02:52.555)
And that keeps us pretty busy. But in terms of something that you asked about, something interesting about…

Brandon Burton (02:55.022)
Thank you.

Brandon Burton (03:01.096)
Thank you.

Josh Cross (03:03.753)
Again, I think it’s interesting to note that I am a local born and raised in Atascadero. what, let’s see, I am an Eagle Scout. I got the project here, did my project here in Atascadero. nice. Love that. It’s fun, it’s fun to drive by my Eagle Scout project here in town.

Brandon Burton (03:17.44)
Awesome.

I am as well, we’re in the eagle’s nest together. That’s awesome.

Josh Cross (03:32.715)
and see it still standing. did like a drinking fountain like 35 years ago. was so long ago.

Brandon Burton (03:38.447)
It’s still working. That’s great. I love that. Well, tell us a little bit more about the Atascadero chamber. Just give us an idea. You mentioned about 700 members. Mention the budget in your bio, but give us an idea of the size, staff, scope of work you guys are involved with. Just to kind of set the stage for our discussion.

Josh Cross (03:43.147)
Yes.

Josh Cross (04:00.041)
Sure.

Yeah, well, interesting tip about Task Arrow. It means mud hole. So I’m trying to, you know, overcome just the namesake. But what I think the original founders were trying to say is that the community was found on water.

Brandon Burton (04:07.916)
Hahaha!

Josh Cross (04:18.737)
So even though many regions in California, especially around us, have water challenges, we seem to have our own independent water supply. So, you know, we call it more of a land of murky water, not so much a mud hole, but Tesco is actually a really beautiful location. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s located exactly halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles on the coast of California. And we’re just one community south

of wine territory. So we’ve got 300 wineries in our backyard, keeps us very busy and we get to enjoy lots of amazing wines that way. Our chamber is, yeah, about 700 members. have a staff of…

Brandon Burton (05:03.209)
Very cool.

Josh Cross (05:12.363)
about 10 that includes full-time, some part-time, and some contract staff. And let’s see we have a board of 17 and

See, our office is located right in downtown Atascadero and we also operate a co-working space which we call Bridgeworks and that seats about 20 small businesses within our footprint here.

Brandon Burton (05:43.618)
Very cool. I grew up in Sacramento, I’m kind of familiar with the area and you guys are sitting in a great spot there, especially close to the coast.

Josh Cross (05:53.196)
Yeah, yeah, right. I didn’t mention that about it’s about 20 minutes to the closest beach, so not too far.

Brandon Burton (06:02.104)
Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, I’m excited for our conversation today. We’re gonna move fast as we cover a lot of ground, but all related to workforce, workforce development on multiple different levels. So we’re gonna dive into that as soon as we get back from this quick break.

All right, Josh, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, today we’re going to cover several points about how you guys are approaching and attacking workforce development at the Atascadero chamber. First of all, I know you guys have some interesting workforce development partnerships. Do you want to start there and tell us about those and how those partnerships came to be and what they mean for you?

Josh Cross (06:49.077)
Yeah, happy to. You know, kind of looking at workforce, know, the bigger umbrella being economic development, and that is certainly a passion of mine, having come from a background and doing that work for a few years, but really kind of seeing the need of or the place for a chamber to support the business community through workforce development and

especially a few years ago, we polled our membership and asked them where could they use help. And was a lot of folks saying we need help hiring and retaining qualified staff members. So we reached out to our workforce development board and I got involved with them and eventually we got a contract with them whereby we are retained to offer VOA services.

with WEX and OJT type partnerships between another entity and the employer. And so our employers are able to have either free or low cost assistance for a certain amount of time. And so that’s a great way for the employer to again get free or low cost help, but also for the employee to get.

really valuable on-the-job thing, OJT, or WEX Workforce Experience. And the partnerships that we have created between these employers and these employees are just really special and it’s great that the Chamber can just be in the middle of that, helping connect the dots between employees and employers. And one of the programs that we’re really proud of here at the Chamber, we have two staff supporting us during this work.

ours, they divide their time among the two, the two ends of our county. We have a North County staff and a South County staff between them. They’re out in the field every day, talking to different business owners, talking about the resources available through them, to them through workforce development, especially these OHAT and WECH programs. And, we connect with hundreds of businesses every year and connect them.

Josh Cross (09:11.371)
at just as great a point for a champion to be involved in.

Brandon Burton (09:15.606)
That’s awesome. I love that you guys have formalized some of those partnerships and made that, you know, like you said, putting the chamber in the middle to help connect those dots and keep those connections strong. It’s right where a chamber belongs. So you guys have found your spot for sure.

Josh Cross (09:27.006)
Yeah.

Josh Cross (09:31.228)
It does and it’s one of those things that we can offer something to a member or especially a non-member that really helps them understand the work that a Chamber of Commerce does. They often wonder what do we do and then we can say we’re here, we’re with the Chamber, we’re here to help. We actually have something to help them with and we can pair them with an employee right away.

Brandon Burton (09:48.087)
Right.

Josh Cross (10:00.332)
I’m not much of a salesman myself. I have really good people on my team that do sales, but early on I knew that I wanted to create programs that I could tell non-members about that would make them just want to be a part of our chamber just because of the amazing resources that we’re offering.

Brandon Burton (10:22.946)
Yeah, if you can attract them, you don’t have to sell them. You just attract them and help them come.

Josh Cross (10:28.255)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. If the value is clear, the choice to join our chamber is very easy.

Brandon Burton (10:37.592)
That’s right. So one of the, guess I’m going to call it a program that you guys did to focus around workforce development was Get Your Business Online. Can you tell us about that and where the idea came from and how you guys approached that? I I assume that the title says what it is, but tell us more about it and how it all works.

Josh Cross (10:49.536)
Yeah.

Josh Cross (11:00.511)
Well, I got to give kudos to Glenn Morris and the Santa Maria Chamber. They had an individual that was on staff that kind of did this work part time, you know, that you could call him up and he might help get your business on line. You know, we took that concept and we pursued grant funding from our county and a few other sources to formalize a more targeted program.

And so we were able to retain a staff member to do get your business online. And the whole idea is to support businesses to either our new business or just don’t have a website or maybe they’re using one of those awful Facebook sites as their website and trying to put their menu on Facebook and you’re trying to, know, yeah, that’s what I was like at 2 a.m. I want to know that

Brandon Burton (11:54.395)
I hate that.

Josh Cross (11:59.872)
what kind of tacos that the taco place down the street has. And you’re looking at pictures of like Yelp menus and things like that. And I’m like, this has got to change. So that’s kind of how it came to be. And, you know, over the course of two years, we’ve helped 180 businesses get their business online. And there’s some real measurable outputs from that, meaning that,

some of them are, you know, their sales are increasing by $3,000 a month, $5,000 a month, $10,000 a month, or even more in a couple cases. So in terms of like the return on the investment from our county grants, you know, the county is super happy because, you know, those are tax dollars then coming back to them and then, so it’s worked out really well. But in addition to just getting your business online, what

doing is digital literacy training. So folks then know how to go back into their website and log in and change the price on a menu item or change the hours of operation, you know, or add another page. So it’s some training and the site and together, you know, that is just a win-win for our small businesses.

Brandon Burton (13:17.742)
Yeah, so are there certain industries you mentioned rest the taco shop, right? You’ve been mentioned some restaurants but are there certain industries that are maybe a little more prone to? Having that need to get online and then how did you guys approach them to? To get them online

Josh Cross (13:36.224)
Well, a lot of it came by word of mouth. So I would say that the, you know, we didn’t really target a specific industry, but the industries that step forward are restaurant, retail, contractors. These are people that are very busy just doing the basics of starting their business or keeping the business going on a day-to-day basis. And for whatever reason, they’re just too wiped out at the end of the day, or it’s not their expertise or they don’t know how to use.

you know, any of the web domains or the hosting platforms, you know, this is where we can come in and support them. And so, you know, we do some targeted outreach, you know, we market the program, we let people know it’s available to them, but, know, word of mouth is how we’ve gotten most of them and they tell their friends and then their friends want to start a small business or, you know,

We go on Facebook and we look for those businesses that just have those Facebook websites and we reach out to them. So it’s a bunch of different ways we’ve gotten the numbers that we did.

Brandon Burton (14:43.416)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (14:47.308)
Yeah, so when you talk about getting them online, what all does that entail besides taking them off of Facebook as their primary place to point them to?

Josh Cross (14:54.359)
Great question. Yeah, so you know we restart them at the beginning. We help them go to, you know, GoDaddy and we help them get a domain and make sure that they understand what that means and how to get it and record your password so that when it renews and you know one year, two year, three years that they know how to go back in and renew it. Then we get them connected with a web hosting platform and

lot of folks like to Wix because it’s free and it’s typically easier to use. It’s probably the easiest from what we found. then, you know, there’s more complex sites who are using WordPress or, you know, we give them a few other options. And then, you know, we kind of show them how to get in on the backend and how, you know, what to do if they need to make a change or, you know, change a color.

Brandon Burton (15:26.09)
simple.

Josh Cross (15:50.358)
whatever they need to do, add photos, for example. And it’s a living, you know, it’s meant to be a living site. So we commit up to eight hours per business to get them launched. That means we do eight hours of design work per business. So that means getting it drafted, meeting with them and doing refinements. And so we do have some parameters to kind of just protect our staff time about how much we can invest in it.

But the in-hour seems to be plenty, especially nowadays with all the AI capabilities of getting copy and imagery and all of that. So it works out well.

Brandon Burton (16:25.441)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (16:34.69)
Yeah, I had an experience even just as recent as last week where I ended up having a surgery, actually a back surgery. But when I was meeting with the surgeon, my father-in-law was trying to do some help in the background, like trying to do research and everything. So he’s looking up the surgeon.

and on the surgeon’s website, he had a lot of good patient reviews, but the last, the most recent review was from like 2020. So for my father-in-law, that was kind of a caution flag of what’s going on. And I’m like, you know, he’s a surgeon. He’s not a web developer. So I’d met with him and he was a good surgeon. Everything was great. But it goes to the point of getting your business online. Once you have the website,

you should be keeping it up to date because who knows what kind of business has been lost on websites like that where it is dated or it brings up questions about how come there’s not more recent activity on this website because it should be a living site that keeps things up to date about your business. anything else about, I’m sorry, go ahead.

Josh Cross (17:42.773)
Yeah.

Ben, you had surgery last week. You had surgery last week and here you are again? I was fast.

Brandon Burton (17:51.565)
Right? Back at it. Anything else about getting your business online that we need to know about before we move on to the next point?

Josh Cross (18:04.459)
Well, our chamber did receive a WACE award for being one of the top programs, and I believe in 2023. And so we’re very proud of this program.

Brandon Burton (18:14.166)
Thanks.

Josh Cross (18:19.229)
It is, you know, if it’s something that other chambers are interested in, it is a program that is ripe for grant funding, especially if you have, you know, economic development initiatives as part of your strategic plan or your vision. Adding a program like this allowed us just to bring on additional staff members to support it full-time. And it is, like I said, it’s ripe for funding. It’s a great opportunity for chambers to do to support their business community, especially the smallest businesses that need this.

Brandon Burton (18:20.046)
Thanks.

Josh Cross (18:49.335)
assistance the most.

Brandon Burton (18:50.934)
Yeah, and these businesses can see that direct return to on that investment. It’s powerful thing. One of those things that really moves the needle.

Josh Cross (18:57.343)
Yeah, yeah, now we have 100 % and now we have 180, you know, chamber members that will be with us probably for life because they just love this program. They’re so grateful.

Brandon Burton (19:10.7)
That’s awesome. So next point around workforce development is you guys have had a focus on creating family-friendly workspaces. So can you tell us about that and the approach and kind of the genesis and what’s gone into that?

Josh Cross (19:26.975)
Yes, this is a really wonderful program. Again, it’s another grant funded program that we found that there’s a real need in our region, more so than just a Tascadero, to elevate what it means to be a family friendly workplace and to put some…

parameters around what that means. And so this is a program that basically is a certificate program and we reach out to various businesses and give them different tiers to apply for. It’s bronze, silver, gold, diamond, platinum, and then we even have like blue diamond and a few other ones. So basically to get businesses to think about ways to

their business more family-friendly and what that can look like is you you could have your your absolute like highest tier is providing on-site child care for your employees and so we only have like two or three in our region that can do that so those are far few in between but at a minimum what businesses can do is have predictive scheduling so

that a week the week before the employees know what days they need to work the following week so that they can schedule childcare and pickups and drop-offs and doctor’s appointments. Do you allow your employees to attend the flexibility to attend parent-teacher conferences and leave a little early for a sports game and go to those doctor’s appointments? so allowing

flexibility to be able to do that. Not everyone can do that. Restaurants, it would be really hard to allow their wait staff to leave early to go do that kind of thing. But there’s different things that every business can do. Restaurants, predictive scheduling, more office environments, they can allow flexibility for their employees to spend time with their families. There’s also things like you offer lactation.

Josh Cross (21:41.835)
Do you offer healthy snacks to your employees? Which our chamber does not qualify for because we have, you know, in our coworking space, have a snack wall and that’s where I draw the line.

Just sticking to the, you know, snacks you can get at Costco, but the no healthy fruits or vegetables. But anyways, there’s just a whole different series, a checklist of things that you can do. It’s available on our webpage, taskroomchamber.org. And you can go in there and start applying for it as a business to see which tier that you get. You get some recognition, you get a certificate, you get to,

you know, put on your website that you are a family-friendly workplace, you’re recognized as one. And, you know, it’s a badge of honor that our employers have really leaned into as a, actually it’s turned out to be kind of a recruitment tool for our businesses. Today, we’re a gold-level family-friendly workplace, and this is what that means. So it helps with retention and attraction for employees.

Brandon Burton (22:48.547)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (23:00.428)
So does the chamber provide the branding for them to put on their website or things like that to announce that they’re the family-friendly workplace?

Josh Cross (23:06.699)
just a little, yeah, just a little badge that they can put on their website so that, yeah, so they can show that off.

Brandon Burton (23:15.894)
Yeah. And I love how you say, you know, every business has something that they can do to show that they’re striving towards, you know, just accommodating a family lifestyle. And it looks different in every business, but there’s something that everybody can do to make it work.

Josh Cross (23:30.751)
to us.

What we see is our businesses like, you know, they might start at a gold or a silver tier and then the next year they might add a thing or change a policy or add a policy. And so we actually see businesses moving up from tier to tier to tier and we kind of coach them along the way about how to do that. you know, so it’s, see growth in this area and we see improvement and that’s, you know, that tells me that the program is working.

Brandon Burton (24:01.634)
Yeah, that’s great. I love that idea and I love that it promotes that healthy family lifestyle. great job.

So you’ve mentioned a couple of times this co-working space and I’m always intrigued when chambers get involved with co-working spaces because everyone seems to have a slightly different approach to how they do it. So I’d love to know how you guys have approached it and what the setup is like for your co-working space.

Josh Cross (24:32.543)
Yeah, the space was opened in 2018 as a way to grow small business in Atascadero. Atascadero is a bedroom community to the city of San Luis Obispo and somewhat to the city of Paso Rolos. So we are seeing too many of our residents leaving the community every day versus working.

We also know that this is a very popular area for Bay Area folks to work remotely. Silicon Valley is about a two hour drive and so there’s lots of folks here that work here and then you know maybe commute to Silicon Valley once a week, once a month, something

So we saw some opportunity to capitalize on the Silicon Valley folks and to kind of retain or regain our own economy here in Atascan. We’re losing too many people to leave to driving outside of the community. So providing a co-working space allows us to provide a lower cost facility for those maybe small businesses or even established businesses or tech businesses to organically grow.

So our space is about 3,000 square feet. It’s not giant, but we have 14 private offices and they’re filled with a pretty healthy waiting list. And we have architects, engineers, we’ve got people from Oracle, from Seattle that are working here.

electrical contractors, financial folks. We have waste trash services in here, we get a lot of foot traffic to the visitor center because of that. Tax service, so lots of different kinds of professional service type businesses. what’s great about it is, you know, we as a…

Josh Cross (26:48.861)
It was a business decision by our Chamber of Commerce and our board to look for ways to raise revenue. so by having the co-workers here, we generate enough revenue to basically pay for our rent. So Chamber lives here rent-free. And we get boards, you know, these businesses. the idea is to help them grow.

Brandon Burton (27:08.535)
Nice.

Josh Cross (27:15.017)
And actually, ultimately, we love it when they leave because they’re adding employees and they’ve outgrown the space. So when a business comes here and they grow and they leave, we have a little celebration for them. And, you know, we wish them well as they move into their larger spaces. But it’s a great we are not an incubator or an accelerator. It’s simply a place to work and to hopefully grow a business.

Brandon Burton (27:44.558)
Yeah, you guys were ahead of the curve opening it in 2018 before working from home and remote was so in style, right?

Josh Cross (27:54.7)
Yeah, you know, it changed when the building first opened. It was a lot of communal space. it’d be, you long tables with people working around it together and headphones. And the model quickly shifted at COVID. And we saw all those people disappear. And then when they came back, they all wanted to pay more for a private office. So we’ve actually expanded our space twice to accommodate more.

Brandon Burton (28:02.327)
Yes.

Josh Cross (28:21.995)
private offices and we’re in a building that we’re lucky enough to be able to continue to grow so over the next year I think we’re adding two more offices and then there’s opportunity for us to move again but we just kind of we grow slowly so that we aren’t incurring a lot of debt and so we can just pay it as we expand.

Brandon Burton (28:44.622)
So you mentioned private offices. Is it their full-time private office or do they share the office space with others like in a different schedule or is there different setups?

Josh Cross (28:57.995)
Yeah, no, everyone has their own office and they don’t share. They’re not sharing. A us, husband and wife will share, even then they’re like, you know, husband will be in the morning and wife in the afternoon. they know there’s not a lot. And, know, I’m always surprised by our coworkers, the flexibility they have in their jobs as compared to like us chamber folks, or it’s like eight to five, Monday through Friday. They seem to have a lot of flexibility, which I’m always.

Brandon Burton (29:03.797)
Okay, okay.

Yeah.

Brandon Burton (29:13.355)
Okay. Okay.

Josh Cross (29:28.115)
Always jealous though.

Brandon Burton (29:29.676)
Right? That’s awesome. I love, I love seeing chambers venture into things like this and especially when it becomes a viable source of revenue and where the chamber lives rent free. And I just think that’s fantastic. So how’s the connection from the chamber office to the coworking space? Do you guys share a wall? Is it all part of the space? What does that look like? Okay.

Josh Cross (29:52.298)
all part of the space. so, you know, our big piece of it is, you know, the chamber uses the co-working space pretty regularly. There’s a big lounge with like comfy, you know, chairs and couches. And we’ve got this big, beautiful kitchen that’s got a beer fridge, a wine fridge, you know, the snack wall, which no fruits or vegetables, right?

Brandon Burton (30:16.824)
Right?

Josh Cross (30:19.371)
We have a fancy espresso machine, so there’s a lot of amenities back there and our members love it as well. So we’ve actually allowed our members four hours use of the space per year as part of their membership benefits. And they love hanging out back there. And for those that need extra hours, they’re happy to pay to use the space for more hours. We get a lot of use out

Brandon Burton (30:43.64)
Yeah, that’s great. Well, Josh, as we start to wrap things up, I wanted to ask on behalf of those listening who are looking to take their organization to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you share with them as they strive towards that goal?

Josh Cross (31:01.193)
Sorry, could you say that again? It just broke up a little bit.

Brandon Burton (31:04.394)
Yeah, for those listening who are trying to take their organization up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item would you share with them as they strive towards that goal?

Josh Cross (31:14.015)
Yeah, so if I’m looking at my crystal ball of what the future of chambers are going to look like in the next few years, I see that the work that we do is, of course, it’s very important, but it’s also very expensive to continue to do the work that makes an impact. And what I see the need for is chambers to come together with their

their neighboring chambers and look for ways to collaborate, to merge, to unify their chambers or have shared staffing models. That’s, I think, the future of chambers because I think the days are gone where it’s just a one or two person chamber that just does events. That’s just not an effective… As a chamber, you can’t be as effective when you’re just…

focused on the annual parade or the fireworks show. Doing this economic development work, workforce development work, that is really important work for a chamber to be involved in. And you can’t do it alone, not these days, not if your membership is three or 400 people. You’ve got to do it together. And I really feel like this emerging idea, this collaborative idea is the work.

there’s the future and quite honestly I need to you know take my own advice you know it’s something that we are talking about we haven’t done that yet but I see that as being our in our future and they know and in the next few years.

Brandon Burton (32:56.684)
Yeah, well that answer may be stealing from my next question about how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Josh Cross (33:04.747)
That definitely is, know, the chambers are, they’re problem solvers for sure. And so the problems of today are continued to be with, you know, they haven’t changed a lot, you know, unfortunately, but it is still important that chambers do advocacy, workforce development, economic development. And, you know, you can do that by

Brandon Burton (33:09.484)
you

Josh Cross (33:34.347)
If you don’t have the budget to do it yourself, you need to call up your friends and your neighbouring chambers and see how you can do it together.

Brandon Burton (33:43.532)
Yeah, I love that. Well, Josh, I want to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you about any of these workforce programs we’ve talked about today. What would be the best way for them to reach out and connect?

Josh Cross (34:00.971)
I’d be happy to connect with anyone and my email is josh@atascaderochamber.org. that’s A-T-A-S-C-A-D-E-R-O atascadero. Remember it means mug. Not the mug. Atascaderochamber.org. That’s the best way to get ahold of me. Also our website is fantastic and my contact information is on.

Brandon Burton (34:05.902)
and that’s it.

Brandon Burton (34:23.814)
I am a man of honor.

Brandon Burton (34:30.954)
perfect. And I’ll make sure we get this in our show notes as well and make it easy to find. But this has been great having you on the show and I appreciate you setting aside some time to join us here on Chamber Chat Podcast. This has been a great conversation. Thank you.

Josh Cross (34:44.651)
Thank you, Brandon Thank you, listeners.

Finding More Volunteers with Becky McCray

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Brandon Burton (00:01.356)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it’s my

goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your chamber members and your community. Our guest for this episode is Becky McCray. Becky is a lifelong rural entrepreneur, cattle rancher, and co-founder of Save Your Dot Town, where she helps small communities rethink how they approach growth and opportunity. With a background as a city administrator and nonprofit executive, Becky brings real world experience in workforce and community development.

She’s a creator of the widely used survey of rural challenges, a tool that’s helped agencies, educators, and businesses better understand the evolving needs of rural areas. Becky is also an award-winning author, and her latest book, The Idea Friendly Guide, empowers communities to take action without waiting for permission, funding, or perfect conditions. Having spoken at more than 300 events across the US and Canada, including Main Street America,

National League of Cities and even a TEDx event in rural Australia, combines big ideas with practical steps. And what makes her perspective truly unique? She lives at Everyday in Hopeton, Oklahoma, a town of just 30 people. But Becky, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat podcast. I’d to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that are out there listening. And if you would share something interesting about yourself so we can all get

to know you a little better.

Becky McCray (01:38.497)
Of course. So I’m excited to be here and this is a great chance for me to shout out my own local chamber, Alva Area Chamber of Commerce in Alva, Oklahoma. Megan and Jody are our co-directors and they’re doing a

bang-up job with our chamber. Something interesting about me is I am a former retail liquor store owner for almost 13 years, an award-winning community volunteer who burned out and quit every single committee that I was on and started entirely over. And in 2006, I started the blog Small Biz Survival the same time that I got my liquor store. And I started using that to share ideas with other rural small business owners.

Brandon Burton (02:20.328)
Very cool. I think there’s probably a few more than a few people listening who can relate to the burnout that comes from just, you know, going every direction and a hundred miles an hour all the time. So you’re in good company.

Well, tell us a little bit about Save Your Dot Town, just the organization itself, what it is. Some listeners may remember we had Deb Brown on a couple months ago from the organization as well, but for those who are not familiar, give us that synopsis of what it is that you all do.

Becky McCray (02:53.134)
Definitely go back and listen to Deb’s episode because she told great stories from her time in the Webster City Chamber of Commerce. But Deb and I started Save Your Dot Town in 2015. She was still at the chamber at the time. So she was actually piloting a lot of our idea-friendly methods in Webster City, even as we were developing and refining them. So I know one of the questions, yes, was like, tell us about your staff and budget. OK, so Deb and I are the staff. have a superstar.

Brandon Burton (03:01.23)
So, that’s

Brandon Burton (03:20.686)
Thank

Becky McCray (03:23.148)
VA named Ethan who is in the Atlanta area but has small town roots in rural Maryland and then we do a lot of collaboration with other people. So Andrew Batten with Mashup Lab and Dakota Resources and John Shepherd from the city planning world and we have a cooperation with the rural strong podcast as well and lots of other folks. So staff it’s just us but we cooperate a lot to make more things happen.

Brandon Burton (03:46.296)
Yeah.

That’s very cool. So today we’re going to lean on your expertise, on your experience and what you’ve seen with chambers and communities in general regarding finding volunteers. And that can be a hot topic, especially as chambers find themselves being volunteered for a lot of things in the community that maybe they shouldn’t or maybe they shouldn’t agree to, we’ll say. But we will dive into that as soon as we get back from this quick break.

All right, Becky, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, today we’re going to dive in on the topic of finding volunteers. And I know we can go deep on the subject. You’ve got some great ideas on this. But is there a high level approach you want to cover around finding volunteers before we go into the more granular points?

Becky McCray (04:40.97)
Sure, the way people volunteer is changing, but everything else is changing. So of course it makes sense that volunteering is changing as well. So the idea friendly method is just to work with volunteers, kind of letting go some of the old ways that we have done things. And the new way is to tap.

Brandon Burton (04:44.418)
Yeah.

Becky McCray (04:59.042)
people’s enthusiasm through more like viral activities and less like a committee structure. So we can talk about how modern volunteering is more about activities and less about committees.

Brandon Burton (05:12.236)
Okay, so let’s do that because I know those listening that there’s probably a love hate relationship with committees. know, they’re, they can’t do everything they do without them. At least that’s the feel. And then it’s also can be, you know, a little overwhelming to deal with, you know, a wide number of committees at an organization. So let’s talk about that first. How do you, how do you function without committees?

Becky McCray (05:39.951)
Can you function without committees? So the State and Sublimity Chamber of Commerce in Oregon, when we first started talking about killing off committees, their director at that time, Elena Turpin, emailed me and said that they had killed off almost all of their year-round committees and that they gathered people only when they needed them. And they did it using their mission. she said, we spend more time talking about how we make a difference in the community.

Brandon Burton (05:59.115)
Okay.

Becky McCray (06:08.76)
which I thought was kind of a key distinction, less time talking about could you serve on my committees and more time, this is how the chamber makes a difference in the community. So she said, then your organization becomes a movement that people can get behind and not just another volunteer opportunity. And I have been quoting that for years because I felt like it really summarized the way that we can organize people around those activities and less of getting them onto committees.

Brandon Burton (06:30.19)
Yeah

Becky McCray (06:35.2)
And it was really made clear to me when I was in Caldwell, Kansas, which has a population of about thousand people. We went around the room and everyone introduced themselves. And I noticed that people that were maybe my age and older, introduced themselves by the organizations that they belong to and serve. So like one person is like, I’m on the Chamber of Commerce Executive Committee. I volunteer with the Historical Society and I’m on the alumni board.

But then people who were like maybe my age and younger didn’t have a list of organizations to point to. It really struck me. They talked about their activities, things they like to do. So there’s a younger woman named Laura who said, I love to garden. Some friends and I do a book club.

Brandon Burton (07:09.902)
That’s an interesting point, yeah.

Becky McCray (07:25.116)
and I have a little free library. She was so hesitant because she didn’t have that list of organizations. She just told us what she liked to do in the community. So if we think of assigning her to a committee, we’re never going to get Laura.

but we’ll get that older volunteer who thinks in terms of committees. But if we want Laura to do something, we have to go, okay, she likes gardening, she likes reading, she has a little free library, maybe she’s crafty and made it, right? Like these are things we can tap in terms of things she likes to do. But we’re gonna get her more with the no committee method than we are with the, hey, join this committee, serve for a full year or a three year term on a committee. Like who knows where they’re gonna be in three years. And if you need a way to think

Brandon Burton (08:01.134)
Right.

Becky McCray (08:08.054)
of it, you can think of it instead of a committee, but as a talent pool. A talent pool is where you put someone who has a talent and you call on them when you need them. So you don’t need to assign them to, you know, the beautification committee if you call them when you need help with a beautification project.

Brandon Burton (08:08.653)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (08:14.286)
Okay.

Brandon Burton (08:29.921)
Yeah.

Becky McCray (08:30.924)
The talent pool could form at any time. It could be around for any length of time. You might dissolve a talent pool when you didn’t need that particular talent anymore. You know, don’t call a committee meeting of the talent pool. You just call on people from the talent pool when you need them.

Brandon Burton (08:45.27)
Yeah, so it’s.

So that’s, I guess the next question where my mind is going with this is,

So say your example with Laura, maybe she’s crafty with the little free library she did, you’ve got a project coming up. Laura would be great to be a part of this because of her skillset, her talents, her tools that she brings. Still, I think there’s a tendency to say, let’s form a committee for this project, right? So even if you’re tapping into a talent pool, how can one…

get past that mindset of this needs to be formalized as a committee or have somebody to report to or keep everything else organized. How do you make things happen?

Becky McCray (09:30.883)
You know, real organizations that have done this talk about how they’ll have folks that have some experience will just figure out what it is the project, what is the outcome that you want to have. And that’s a goal that’s related to your community. The goal is never to have a committee. That’s not why we have a chamber. The goal of the chamber is to make a stronger, more prosperous community. And so if you think about that, how does this project lead to a more prosperous community?

Brandon Burton (09:54.126)
Thank

Becky McCray (10:00.958)
Knowing that then, you can break it up and go, how can we move these pieces around? Somebody can take this part, somebody can take that part and divide it up, go do it. When you come back together, the bulk of it may be done. It may be all done. Now, I really think that the key here is to think of the volunteer motivation as a curve, like as a power law curve. So there’s only a few people who have huge motivation.

Brandon Burton (10:05.23)
This is the right time.

Becky McCray (10:30.562)
But there’s a lot of people way down here on the long tail who have like small motivation. They have a very small motivation, but there’s a lot of them. And so if the project is the downtown flower boxes, they’re going to need constructed there, or maybe they need repairs. They need to be repainted and then they need to be revitalized with new flowers. Well, we don’t need to ask one person to be in charge of every single bit of that so much as we could simply put out that this is what we’re trying to do.

Brandon Burton (10:34.062)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (10:43.598)
you

Brandon Burton (10:54.638)
the best we can.

Becky McCray (11:00.024)
Can you adopt one? Can you come and do a particular task towards making that happen? We’re looking for people for the flower planting party. We don’t need a committee to have a flower planting party so much as we just need to arrange for the resources we need, bring those together, and then see if it doesn’t happen, right? Now, obviously there are some, like I was speaking with the Association of Fairs and Expos.

Brandon Burton (11:02.92)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (11:25.582)
Thank you.

Becky McCray (11:25.91)
And so this is like your county fair people and your state fair people. And they’re like, okay, so some things we absolutely have to have organized. Sure, then go ahead and make those things absolutely organized. But try to think how many things could we turn into kind of more of a viral challenge? Can you do a little tiny part and post a picture of yourself rather than serving on a year round committee?

Brandon Burton (11:47.895)
Okay, so that’s what you mean by the viral, making something viral. So that’s a good example. Yeah, let’s go in deeper on that.

Becky McCray (11:53.964)
Yeah, you want to talk more about that?

Brandon Burton (11:59.791)
I mean, you had mentioned that things, everything is changing, right? And including volunteers. So maybe before we go the viral wave, do you think the change with volunteers, is that just a generational thing? Is it a change with technology and how people interact with others? And is that pointing to where the the viruleness of getting volunteers?

becomes a factor. What do you see and why do you think that change, what’s driving that change?

Becky McCray (12:34.606)
A long time ago I noticed that a lot of the organizations that we’re familiar with in our communities have a founding date in the 1900s or 1910s. Like there’s a lot of organizations that you could name that started in that time period. it was several communications tools came together.

Like we had the telegraph and we started having like first class postage stamps so you could mail things easily without having to have each individual piece taken to the post office, weighed, individual postage applied to the penny. Like you could just put a stamp on it and send it. The typewriter was introduced and then you had carbon paper and you could make two copies of something so easily rather than write everything longhand. And then,

Brandon Burton (13:14.638)
you

Becky McCray (13:20.13)
Not surprisingly, this is the same time period when we get the organizational chart is first used in business. And then Robert’s Rules of Order is introduced. And so there was this boom in how we did organizations around those specific tools. But as I’m describing them to you, you were thinking, those are some really old fashioned tools. I haven’t telegraphed anybody.

Brandon Burton (13:40.6)
thing this is great technology this is awesome at the time it was

Becky McCray (13:43.083)
It’s so awesome. I know I have a great picture of a typewriter and it’s an ad and it’s got like rays of light behind it and a crown over its head because it is so amazing. But we have moved beyond that. Even if you collect typewriters for fun, you are not sitting down at your Smith Corona portable and handling all of your daily business with it.

unless you’re really exceptional. But we have, we all know what kind of communication tools we have today and the amount of computing power we carry in our hands. of since the organizational tools we’ve all been trained with were created and used around a time period and around tools that are no longer the cutting edge.

New ways of organizing ourselves need to take advantage of the communication tools available to us today. And so that’s the long version of how we ended up with this change. So what the viral difference looks like is I was in Pullman, Washington, which has a population of about 40,000 people. And they had a dirty sidewalk problem. And they were talking about we should do another cleanup day. And so one person

Brandon Burton (14:41.378)
Yeah.

Becky McCray (15:00.386)
from the back of the room says, the chamber did the last cleanup day. The chamber should do another one. This is exactly what you were talking about. People volunteer the chamber into doing things. Fortunately, I was standing there and I said, no, you do not get to assign this to somebody else. If you don’t want to do it, then it doesn’t need to happen because it’s not your priority. And they were very awkwardly quiet for a minute.

Brandon Burton (15:09.344)
Yep. Volunteer the chamber.

Brandon Burton (15:23.438)
Great point.

Becky McCray (15:27.552)
And then a business owner in the back of the room raised her hand and she said, her name’s Willow. She said, I will sweep my own sidewalk. Which is perfect, right? Like that’s great. That’s at least one section of sidewalk that’s gonna be cleaner. I suggested to Willow that she should take a photo, she should post it on Instagram and tag two of her friends who are also merchants downtown and say, today is clean your own sidewalk day. Go out and sweep your sidewalk.

This is what Willow did. And this worked for Pullman. Suddenly, almost all of the downtown merchants were sweeping their sidewalks on Wednesday afternoons. That’s Clean Your Own Sidewalk Day in Pullman, Washington. And seeing that, then the city says, if you’re going to do that on Wednesday afternoons, we can run the street sweeper early, early on Thursday morning and pick all that up. But if Willow had tried to committee her way into this,

Brandon Burton (16:09.41)
That’s awesome.

Becky McCray (16:24.82)
Let’s form a committee at the chamber. We’re going to put people on the committee that they will sweep sidewalks, and then we’re going to try to talk the city into changing their work schedule. If she had tried to convince people of this, everyone would have resisted. Willow didn’t try to convince anybody of anything. Willow enticed them into doing a thing that felt more like a fun viral challenge and less like, hey, could you serve a three-year term on the beautification committee?

or give up your entire Saturday for Cleanup Day on the hottest day of the year because Cleanup Day is always the hottest day of the year.

Brandon Burton (17:00.918)
That’s right. It doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing. It’s always going to be that.

Becky McCray (17:03.724)
You can schedule that thing for the depths of winter and it will turn off scorching.

Brandon Burton (17:08.268)
That’s right. Well, and honestly, who wants to go to a committee meeting about sweeping your sidewalks, right? But when you put it in their hands, there’s a sense of pride that comes with it where they want to share it. And it has that snowball viral, the viral effect, which is awesome. I love that idea and being able to just put the ownership back in their hands, but then to see it gain momentum. That’s so cool.

Becky McCray (17:16.299)
Exactly.

Becky McCray (17:34.361)
Right, and the key thing is to find what’s the tiny, small piece that each person can do on their own that adds up to the result we want for our community. The result they want is a clean downtown, and so each person cleaning one section of sidewalk is a usable unit to make that happen. And we don’t need accountability. We don’t need somebody to go around and go, you didn’t sweep your sidewalk. Like, chill out, dude. That’s not how this works.

Brandon Burton (17:52.492)
Yeah.

Becky McCray (18:01.714)
You know, but it’s more fun to like have three other people keep tagging you of like, I was sweeping my own sidewalk. Like Willow literally owns a cute broom so she can have better photo ops when she cleans her sidewalk.

Brandon Burton (18:01.91)
Right.

Brandon Burton (18:12.27)
Yeah. But on the next level could be clean your neighbor’s sidewalk day, you know, and it’s like doing an act of service for somebody else and it could just keep going.

Becky McCray (18:21.88)
I know. And there’s two parts to that. Willow told me that there was one person who would not clean their sidewalk and some of their customers started doing it on Clean Your Own Sidewalk Day, would come and sweep their business sidewalk because the customer wanted to see them be part of it. Now tell me that’s not amazing community involvement. The second thing is, like if you have some stuff that you want folks to do, one way to do that is like make your honey do list for your community.

Brandon Burton (18:40.716)
That is cool. That is really cool.

Becky McCray (18:49.964)
I stole this idea from Rob Hatch from Maine when there was a controversy in his town because some people took it on themselves to do a thing and then the city didn’t approve of them having done it. It turned into a giant fight. How dare they replace that old bridge on the walking trail, right? Like, okay, but what if we just made a list of things that it’s okay for people to do? And then they could pick from that. And so if on that is like,

Brandon Burton (19:14.926)
We have to make a good project. And so, when we have this project, it’s not a mistake, I don’t know why it is.

Becky McCray (19:18.412)
somebody needs to power wash the benches in the downtown, do you know anybody that owns a power washer? They love their power washers. They’re dying for things that they can go power wash because it’s so much fun. And so if one of the entries on that list is power wash the downtown benches, somebody is going to be like doing their back deck going, I love doing my power washing. Wonder if there’s any I can do. They can pull up the list. They can go up benches downtown, off they go.

Brandon Burton (19:39.458)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (19:46.232)
Yeah.

Becky McCray (19:47.041)
It’s going to get done. You didn’t do anything but put it on the list. So if you can maintain a list of like these things are OK to do, it’s OK to clean out these flower boxes. It’s OK to wash these windows. It’s OK to, you know, anything that you’re trying to organize, if you can find that small piece that people can do, but then let them know. Then we talked about that curve of like lots of people have little motivation.

I don’t have to be super motivated so much as I just need to find the piece on that list that matches my motivation.

Brandon Burton (20:20.0)
Yeah, that’s funny about the power washers. It’s like somebody with a chainsaw too, right? I mean, if they get a chance to use it, they’re out using it, right? And they’ll do whatever they need to to provide that service. I love that. So these honey do lists for the community, which is just suggest like, say a chamber where to do it.

Becky McCray (20:24.736)
You know, they are.

Brandon Burton (20:41.304)
Do they put it on their website? Do they share it on social media? Do they put it down like one thing at a time? Or do you just keep a list out there at all times? What do you think would work best or what have you seen work as far as a honeydew list go?

Becky McCray (20:56.568)
So the idea of friendly method says test it, take small steps, try it out. So it’s going to work different in your community than my community. So just try something out. But here’s my suggestion. First of all, just start making a list of the things you wish you had time to accomplish yourself. My own Alva chamber, at one point it was, come in and assemble the cabinet that we’re going to set our copier on. OK, just put that on the list. You haven’t had time to do it? I totally understand.

Brandon Burton (21:04.045)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (21:20.821)
Okay.

Becky McCray (21:25.634)
was going to move the copier to a more accessible, easier to access height so that it’d be easier to work at. This is a usable thing. Somebody is good at putting together flat pack furniture, and it may not be you. So put that on the list. Go around, think of all the things you know of, put together that list. Where should you share it? Where do people actually pay attention to you? That’s changing all the time. So you figure out how it works best.

If you have a text message service and you’re like texting people about events, text people and say, the updated honeydew list is at link. And make sure it’s mobile friendly so they can go and go, power wash the benches, I’m in, or paint the railings, I’ve got some leftover paint. Whatever those things are. So start with what you know, put it the places you know you can get people’s attention, and include on there how they can nominate a task that they see.

Brandon Burton (22:00.175)
Thank

Brandon Burton (22:06.189)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (22:20.526)
I like that.

Becky McCray (22:20.934)
there’s this empty building and I see the light fixture has fallen down in there, the flower box in front, everything is dead. That can go on the list. Somebody can, and this actually happened in Pullman, it was a city council member adopted the flower box on the front of the empty building, planted flowers and carried water to it all summer and had great conversations with people about the future of downtown.

Brandon Burton (22:42.474)
I bet, I bet. So what would you think if you catch somebody in the act, you know, doing one of these items of service on the honeydew list, you snap a picture and share that out too, and then people know you’re crossing it off the list or?

Becky McCray (22:57.62)
Absolutely, I love that. That’s a great, I hadn’t thought about that particular part of it. Like, could you catch them doing it? You could ask them to let you know when they do it, and so that you know what’s been done, or you just may notice things. And even if you didn’t catch them doing it, you just noticed the new flowers or the clean bench, or the copier is suddenly at the right level. Like, take a picture and go ahead and say, I don’t know what anonymous volunteer did this for us. Great to have it. This looks wonderful.

Or if you see, just the same as you do already, like when you see two businesses do a cooperative ad, do you not like take a picture of that and like promote it and go, look at these businesses cooperating, we love to see that. Whatever you’re trying to encourage, you should encourage.

Brandon Burton (23:36.174)
Yeah.

That’s right. So just overall, what would you say the secret is to attracting volunteers? You talked about getting that talent pool, that list of abilities and talents of others, but if you had to kind of hone it down into what is the secret, what is the formula to getting volunteers, what would you say?

Becky McCray (24:02.734)
The secret is to let go of the old ways that you have been taught as much as possible and tap into the ways that people like to do things. So if it’s just three words, it’s entice, not convince.

Brandon Burton (24:17.451)
Okay, I’ll make that entice, not convince. That’s awesome. Any other lessons that have stood out to you as you’ve seen other communities adopt these practices for getting volunteers that really stand out to you? Any other stories or examples that you want to point to?

Becky McCray (24:37.446)
I do want to tell a Deb story because I have the chance to tell a Deb story. When Deb, you know I’m going to tag her. my gosh, I’m so going to tag her. So when Deb was at the Chamber of Commerce in Webster City, Iowa, which has a population of I think about 8,000 people. So it’s kind of to me a big town and to some of y’all a small town. Just depends. So they did an event called Junk Fest, J-U-N-Q-U-E because it was nice junk. Junk Fest.

Brandon Burton (24:39.552)
Okay. Make sure to tag her on this so she’ll know. She’ll know we’re talking about her.

Brandon Burton (24:56.918)
Right from 30. Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon Burton (25:05.55)
Classy joke.

Becky McCray (25:06.35)
It’s a big, you know, craft and classy junk and recycled and upcycled and all the great things. So they originally did it with like the old way volunteers. So it was Deb and two really good core volunteers who put the thing together. And Deb was chamber director. So Deb and these two volunteers put the whole thing together. They managed to make it work. It was great. They loved it. The second year, a group of people who didn’t qualify as

for Junkfest because they were home-based sellers of like home goods or cosmetics or something that didn’t qualify for being part of the handmade Junkfest. They said they wanted to be part of it, but they had talked to somebody that owned a lot across the street from the location. Could they set up over there? Now, this is kind of against the rules, but Deb and her core volunteers are idea friendly enough that they go, sure, come alongside. So this is one of our secrets in

Small Town says like, let the new volunteers come alongside so that they can add to the event that we’re putting on, even if it’s not part of the old way we’ve always done it. Let people innovate in nearby spaces. Then year three went great. Year four, it felt like it all fell apart for Deb because her two core volunteers could not help this year for personal reasons. And

Brandon Burton (26:12.302)
you

are not the work I’m interested in.

you

Brandon Burton (26:29.133)
There’s a lot of those things. I don’t know if you’ve heard of those things.

Becky McCray (26:35.298)
they had to move to a different location. So this feels like the whole thing has been blown apart. They were expecting 7,500 attendees the same as the last year. And she’s going, can I do all this by myself? So with that intimidating information, she went, I don’t have to do all that by myself. At this point, idea friendly was already a thing. So Deb applied some idea friendly method thinking of.

Brandon Burton (26:38.798)
Okay.

Becky McCray (27:00.63)
I need to have small but meaningful ways for lots of people to participate. So she called some of the vendors who knew a lot of the other vendors. So she called them in. They came to a lunch and they sat down together and the vendor said to Deb, like, so what are you going to do? And Deb said, actually, this is, and she told a story just like this, what are we going to do? Right.

Brandon Burton (27:03.64)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (27:19.106)
We’re do, right?

Becky McCray (27:24.034)
but this is their event and she’s like, you know what works for you? You tell me, what if we just like figure out a bunch of ideas for you to try out and find what works? So they all start sharing these ideas. They didn’t write them all down. They just like went, ooh yeah, that one. And they didn’t like formally vote on them. They didn’t run them to the subcommittee. They didn’t like send out a mail poll. They figured out what they wanted to do. They chose the ones that seemed most promising at that point that they could test out. And so then they did what they ended up doing. They…

decided they wanted to bring their trailers because they all have a trailer they use to bring their stuff to junk fest. It was now going to be in downtown. Well, they weren’t allowed to do it when it was in the park since it was downtown. They talked to the city council and they giving them permission to just go ahead and do it even though it was against the city code. So they did do it, they got permission. So they brought their trailers. They changed the size of the spaces a little bit to better fit the new location. like…

Brandon Burton (27:58.575)
friends.

Becky McCray (28:18.688)
the vendors led on this. This wasn’t just Deb doing it by herself or with her core volunteers. She had all the people who were most involved taking all those small pieces. So much like for Willow, cleaning her own sidewalk was a meaningful unit, for the vendors, helping to determine what works for them is a meaningful unit. So what Deb actually said at the time, and I have the quote she wrote about it, she said, this changed my whole outlook on this event. It is now fun again.

Brandon Burton (28:29.358)
you

you

Brandon Burton (28:42.19)
And all of a sudden, this is changed by the outcome of this war. It is not a friendly war.

Becky McCray (28:46.924)
because I’m not doing it alone by rote and everyone has a small but meaningful role. So she was much less stressed because she had a lot less of the responsibility on her own shoulders and everybody took a smaller piece. So I just love this idea that rather than finish all the plans herself from the comfort of her office, she brought it forward to the vendors and it was up to them to take more parts of that and make it happen.

Brandon Burton (28:52.43)
Thank you.

Brandon Burton (29:00.107)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (29:12.566)
Yeah, that’s a great idea, great example. Thank you, Deb, for listening. Thanks for that. Well, Becky, I like asking on behalf of all the Chamber Champions that are listening who want to take their organization up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item would you share with them as they strive towards that goal?

Becky McCray (29:35.823)
I had to go back and listen to Deb’s tip and make sure I wasn’t going to give the same one. So one that is not what she said is to start a success list. And this is an idea I got from Carol Peterson, Milnor, North Dakota, population 700. And so she started, she received this advice when she started, she passes it on to others, I’m passing it on to you. But every time a business opened, she wrote it down. If they expanded, if they remodeled.

Brandon Burton (29:39.874)
Yeah.

Becky McCray (30:04.242)
New investments, business successions, new truck businesses and trailer businesses, so like the food trucks, home-based businesses, finding every business that opens, expands, remodels, all of that. And then she adds in grants, community projects, public improvements, successful events, any of these that win an award, this all goes onto her success list. And so for a town of 700 people, they have this

list of amazing things that they have accomplished together and so when somebody says nothing good ever happens in Milnor she’s like have you seen the success list? She’s got to respond and again you asked how do you promote this? You promote it everywhere. You promote it everywhere and I think the reason that I think this would help you take your thing to the next level even if you already track part of this and you think that’s good. A success list reminds you of what’s going well.

Brandon Burton (30:43.054)
Right? I love that.

Becky McCray (31:02.602)
It reminds people they’re part of a winning team that’s doing good things. It counters the negativity of nothing good ever happens here or no business has ever come here. And also when you start digging deeper for this level of success, you’re gonna uncover a lot of people who are doing amazing things in your community that you didn’t know about. They have been flying below the radar doing a community group or a small activity club or like they’re doing a kayaking group or there’s a running club.

These are the people who are shaping the future of your community and you want to know about them and you want to share their successes so you build a stronger feeling of community.

Brandon Burton (31:37.577)
So, that was kind of fun.

Yeah, I love that. And even tapping into those people who have the kayaking club and the running club and everything, they have their group of followers. So as they get on board with the vision of whatever the chamber’s doing, whatever project they want to volunteer with, whatever they’re getting involved with, they have an audience, they have their group that they can share things with too. And back to the point of getting those volunteers, you get one person from a running club that shows up to something and they’re going to bring five or 10 people with them. So.

I think that’s great advice. I like asking everyone I have on the show about how they see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward.

Becky McCray (32:13.326)
Definitely.

Becky McCray (32:22.4)
And while I’m not a chamber person, I do hear from Deb, like I get an earful from Deb about Chamber World, but I do, looking at all the trends that I see and all of the results that we get on our Survey of Rural Challenges and what people tell us about their communities and what their challenges are, in-person connections, where people can have a shared experience that gives them something to reflect on and think about what they just were part of.

Brandon Burton (32:26.51)
Great.

Becky McCray (32:47.51)
If it can help them connect with different groups in the community, people they never normally talk to, it’s gonna change their way of thinking. And if they play a small but meaningful role in it, even if they just sweep one sidewalk, then they see themselves as the kind of person who’s involved in their community and does positive things. So when you add that up, then you are creating a stronger community. You are overcoming our divisiveness, and you’re giving people that space to.

Brandon Burton (33:06.126)
Thank

Becky McCray (33:14.958)
our way into a new way of thinking about our community and about our own role in it.

Brandon Burton (33:21.634)
Yeah, I love that idea of building those in-person connections.

And in a world where, you know, everyone’s doing the social media thing, AI has taken a huge role in things. You know, people, I’m not one of these people, but some people think the ideal world is where you never have to leave your house and you just stay in your house and AI does everything for you and technology, this and that. But having those human connections, we are human and we need those connections and utilizing some of these tools even, like you’re talking about postings, the sweeping the sidewalk on social media.

you’re utilizing these tools, but you’re utilizing them in a way to make in-person connections. And I love that because it’s meeting people where they are and then…

appreciate that. Becky, I want to give you a chance to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you and learn more about what you Deb are up to. Where would you point them and what would be the best way to connect?

Becky McCray (34:23.444)
SaveYour.town is our website address. BeckyMcCray.com is my personal website and I have a newsletter that goes out there. And if you go to SmallBizSurvival.com, that’s that blog I started in 2006 for small town businesses, still alive, still thriving, still going. So if you need to know something about small town business, SmallBizSurvival.com is a great resource for you.

Brandon Burton (34:42.584)
next.

Brandon Burton (34:48.428)
So we’ll make sure that’s all in our show notes for this episode. But this has been a lot of fun having you on on Chamber Chat podcast and sharing these examples and stories of communities across the country and the good that they’re doing and gathering volunteers and not, you I see it as you see the old image of.

you driving a team with a horse and carriage and you’re doing the whip versus being in the front and then people follow. And I see that, you know, with this kind of model and how it’s working. So let’s be the leaders, let’s be out there and have other people be encouraged to follow us. Becky, this is great. I really appreciate you spending time with us.

Becky McCray (35:28.214)
I love it. I love your closing image of not being the driver, but being like, hey, let’s go do it together.

Uniqueness of Gateway Communities with Megan Curtis

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Brandon Burton (00:01.259)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and here on the podcast, I introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Today’s guest is Megan Curtis, Executive Director of the Illinois Valley Chamber of Commerce. Originally from a small town in Idaho, Megan made Southern Oregon home in 2018 and has been a driving force in the region ever since.

She joined the chamber in 2019 and stepped into the executive director role in 2022. With a background in hospitality and the service industry, Megan brings deep experience in small business support, rural economic development, and sustainable tourism. Her leadership extends across the region through several key roles, including serving as secretary on the Travel Southern Oregon Board.

president of the Illinois Valley Community Development Organization Board and as an active rotarian. Known for her energy, optimism, and passion for community building, Megan is dedicated to creating meaningful connections and helping drive lasting impact throughout the Illinois Valley. When she’s not working to support her community, she enjoys spending time outdoors and making memories with family and friends.

Megan, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Tap podcast. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening. And if you would share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Megan Curtis (01:34.53)
Hello, Brandon. Thank you so much for having me and hello, Chamber Champions. So one random thing about me is that I am a twin sister and we were born on Groundhog’s Day. So our entire childhood, you everyone was like, do you celebrate with Punxsutawney Phil? And of course my mom would let us stay home from school on the day if we saw our shadow. So we always saw our shadow. But last year, last year we went ahead and made the pilgrimage to Punxsutawney.

Brandon Burton (01:47.777)
Okay.

Brandon Burton (01:54.967)
That went by.

Megan Curtis (02:03.862)
My sister, my mom, and I, all three of us, so we’re all three Aquarius and it was a wildly chaotic and fun girls trip.

Brandon Burton (02:13.623)
That sounds like fun. Yeah, that’s very cool. I love hearing these interesting facts about people. You never know what you’re going to hear. well, if you would. Yeah, yeah, but I love it. That’s great. Well, tell us a little bit about the Illinois Valley Chamber just to give us an idea of the size of the chamber staff.

Megan Curtis (02:21.902)
It’s true and that’s pretty random but…

Brandon Burton (02:38.625)
budget, scope of work you guys are involved with just to kind of set the stage for our conversation today.

Megan Curtis (02:43.95)
Absolutely. So the Illinois Valley Chamber of Commerce is a relatively small organization. We’re located in Cave Junction, Oregon, which is Southern Oregon. We’re about 30 minutes from the California border close to the Redwoods. So we have a smaller budget, about 30,000 a year, and around 70 members currently. We did receive last year

Brandon Burton (02:54.455)
Okay. Okay.

Megan Curtis (03:10.434)
funding through Travel Oregon for our Gateway to the Stars project. So that’s up to $100,000 from them. So that’s big money we’re trying to bring into the Valley.

Brandon Burton (03:18.487)
Okay. Yeah, very cool. So we’ll, I’m sure, spend more time talking about that as we get into our conversation today. So do you guys have a tourism focus? Are you strictly chambered? Do you focus on economic development? What’s your focus? Okay.

Megan Curtis (03:36.622)
So we have both, yes, we’re both. We do business building workshops and after hours mixers, the ribbon cuttings, the regular chamber activities. And then we are also the destination management slash marketing organization for the city of Cave Junction. And that’s why we work really closely with Travel Southern Oregon. They’re the regional destination management organization for Southern Oregon.

Brandon Burton (03:43.118)
Thank

Brandon Burton (03:49.304)
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Yeah, that definitely will help set the stage for our conversation as we focus on the impact of being a gateway community. So we’ll dive into that and what all that means as soon as we get back from this quick break.

Megan Curtis (04:11.48)
Yes.

Brandon Burton (04:16.631)
All right, Megan, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, today we’re talking about what the impact is of being a gateway community. So first, tell us what does that mean? What does it mean to be a gateway community?

Megan Curtis (04:29.08)
So we are actually known, Cave Junction is known as the gateway to the Oregon Caves. We have a national monument and preserve right here in our backyard. It’s about 20 miles out of town. And we are also the gateway to Crater Lake as well as the Redwoods. So being a gateway community, there are a lot of people that travel through and now we’re just trying to focus on how we get them to stop and stay.

Brandon Burton (04:52.407)
And that’s basically the whole idea of the game.

Megan Curtis (04:57.698)
We want them to come invest their money in our community, have a great time, make some amazing memories, and then tell everyone they know about it and send them our way.

Brandon Burton (04:58.015)
That’s very good.

Brandon Burton (05:07.647)
That’s right. That’s right. And then you get on podcasts and stuff like that to help promote it, right? Come visit Cape junction. Yeah.

Megan Curtis (05:10.67)
Yes, yes, come see us. We have a beautiful, beautiful outdoor recreation opportunities out here.

Brandon Burton (05:21.247)
Yeah, so let’s maybe talk a little bit about that, the outdoor recreation activities. So I know you’d mentioned about the dark sky, dark skies. Tell us about that and.

Megan Curtis (05:33.984)
In fact, the Oregon Caves, Oregon Caves is actually a dark sky park through dark sky international. So it would be responsible for the city to, you know, make sure that they’re doing their lighting in a responsible way so as not to impede on Oregon caves designation. And so we’re looking at, hopefully submitting a nomination to dark sky international for the city of cave junction to be a dark sky community. Yeah.

Brandon Burton (06:02.867)
Okay, very cool.

Megan Curtis (06:03.734)
And then the outdoor recreation here, I mean, we we have pitcher plants out here, Darlingtonias, they’re cobra lilies. And so they’re carnivorous plants. So there’s a really great ven of them that you can see on $8 Mountain Boardwalk Trail. It’s like a quarter of a mile trail and super easy, very accessible. And you can see the whole ven of them.

Brandon Burton (06:12.455)
Okay.

Brandon Burton (06:28.117)
That is cool. So similar.

Megan Curtis (06:29.144)
But we also have wine tasting in the trees, like in tree houses. We have the out and about tree sort. And they have a zip line and guided horseback riding tours. So there’s a lot to do out here. Plus we have the Illinois River. So a salmon stronghold out here.

Brandon Burton (06:41.365)
That’s awesome. Yeah. That’s awesome. So I’ve never heard of, you said, cobra plants? Is that right? These carnivorous plants? Cobra lilies. I’m gonna have to check those out.

Megan Curtis (06:51.916)
The cobra lilies, cobra lilies. Yes, they are very cool and they really do resemble cobras.

Brandon Burton (07:00.381)
Okay, that is interesting. It’s worth a trip in itself.

Megan Curtis (07:03.502)
I know that’s a really unique thing for the valley. And there’s some in Redwoods. There’s like a little botanical trail that you can take and see them in the Redwoods. But a lot of people don’t see, it’s just a tiny sign on the side of the road. So a lot of people don’t see that. Yes, exactly. Not looking down.

Brandon Burton (07:16.631)
When you go to the Redwoods and you’re looking up, right? You’re not looking down so much. So yeah, very cool. So what have you guys seen as being a Gateway community? You talked about some of these recreation activities, but what are some of the ways that you try to pull and attract and get people to stay there and experience the area and spend time in your community?

Megan Curtis (07:44.814)
Right. So it’s been a little difficult. When we moved here in 2018, the Chateau is a historic lodge up at Oregon Caves and it closed down for renovations. They expected it to be done in about two to three years. However, they ran into a bunch of seismic issues. And so it’s still not open. My husband and I joke, we’re like, we’re going to live here until the Chateau reopens. And I was like, well, we might be retiring here.

Brandon Burton (07:46.327)
So, thanks for listening to me.

Brandon Burton (08:01.975)
Bye.

Brandon Burton (08:09.111)
Yeah.

Megan Curtis (08:13.326)
It’s a good thing we really love this place. And then there is a hotel property in the city of Cave Junction, but it also closed in 2019. So right now the Chamber is working really hard with partners to try to find a hotelier that will come in and purchase that property, build a hotel. We’re hoping to have the Monterey furniture from the Chateau put into our Kirbyville Inn in Kirby.

Brandon Burton (08:16.181)
That’s right.

Megan Curtis (08:41.614)
so that folks can see what the rooms look like in the chateau without being in the chateau. So that’s kind of where we’re focusing right now is finding someone to put in a hotel so that people can stay longer. We do have a lot of campgrounds, including a KOA that’s brand new. It’s absolutely lovely property. Lots of RV camping and lots of dispersed camping, but a lot of people are looking for traditional lodgings.

Brandon Burton (08:48.426)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (09:09.751)
Thanks.

Megan Curtis (09:11.15)
We’re having a hard time attracting those visitors at this time, but we’re working on it. Yeah. And we’re also working really closely with Main Street Cave Junction, you know, to try to beautify downtown and make it more welcoming. We’re hoping to do a brand discovery process for the Illinois Valley. So the Illinois Valley is made up of a few different communities. There’s Kirby, Selma, Cave Junction is the only incorporated city in the Illinois Valley.

Brandon Burton (09:15.435)
Yeah, gotta find those solutions.

Megan Curtis (09:40.888)
And then there’s O’Brien and Tequila. So we’re trying to represent the entire Valley and bring everyone together and decide who exactly are we and how do we want visitors to see us so that, you know, they’re going to come see what we have to offer, invest in the community and then tell everyone they know about.

Brandon Burton (10:00.788)
That’s right. That’s right. So what kind of space does that, does the Illinois Valley cover? So you mentioned the different towns, but what kind of square miles or what, how much space is that? Okay.

Megan Curtis (10:10.35)
So it’s about 20 miles, yeah. And I’d say square miles. Yeah, it’s fairly big size. There’s about 20,000 people in the Illinois Valley. The city of Cave Junction has about 2,000 people in city limits. So the city limits are relatively small. And it doesn’t extend to the Oregon Caves, 20 miles up Caves Highway.

Brandon Burton (10:24.087)
Okay.

Brandon Burton (10:28.895)
Okay.

Brandon Burton (10:35.999)
Yeah, so on the chamber side of things, as far as supporting and helping develop business and things like that, what are some of the industries that you see in your community? And I would imagine recreation would be up at the top of the list, but what are some of those industries?

Megan Curtis (10:52.718)
Unfortunately, the like the outfitters here, most of them are in Grants Pass, which is about 40 miles north of us. Grants Pass and Merlin, those communities. We do have a few out here, but we also have a lot of restaurants, gift shops, museums. We have a smoke jumper based museum and then we have a Kirbyville museum. We have Great Cat’s World Park.

So you can come see the big cats and yeah, there’s definitely a lot of nonprofits in our area. So trying to attract the businesses to open is what we’re working on really hard right now. We’re holding a pitch night next week. So folks can come in and tell us about all of their great ideas and we can walk them through, you know, here’s some funding over here for that, or you should partner with this person.

Brandon Burton (11:34.508)
This

Megan Curtis (11:50.08)
to make sure that these great ideas get off the ground.

Brandon Burton (11:54.07)
Yeah, I like that. Tell me a little bit more about that. The pitch night. I picture like Shark Tank, right? You come in and you share your idea and you’re getting feedback and maybe not, you know, having investors, you know, throw money at it, but you’re you’re helping to point them where some funding is.

Megan Curtis (12:00.578)
Yeah, you know, yep. They’re just gonna.

Megan Curtis (12:10.294)
Right, into the right direction. Yes, especially, you know, with the SBDC at Road Community College, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of people that, that decide that they want to do something and then they just do it without a plan. And so then it kind of shuts down fairly early on. And what we would like to see is, know, this is a great idea. You can go here for help with the business plan so that you know exactly what you’re getting into or, I’m, you know, that’s

a very niche kind of project. I’m not sure that it’s going to, you know, take off here. Just kind of weigh those options out and get some input from others in the community. Like, hey, yeah, that’s a great idea. And I could totally get behind that. Or, yeah, is there really a need for that? Mm-hmm.

Brandon Burton (12:54.903)
Yeah, maybe help them make connections with, yeah. Yeah, I could see where there could be supporting businesses where, you know, having a certain business come into town would help support another and they feed each other customers. So could see, you know, having that synergy created. So how do you…

Megan Curtis (13:06.669)
Yes.

Megan Curtis (13:12.332)
Yeah. Well, and that’s another thing that we’re trying to work on is the hospitality aspect of it, because a lot of our businesses on Main Street don’t realize that they are in the tourism industry. you are tourists will stop here. And so we need to be able for them to know that, and this is going on over at the big museum today, or this is going on over at this place. And then when they get to that location, the staff there is kind of the same way. And it’s like, if you like this.

Brandon Burton (13:22.561)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (13:37.559)
Thank you.

Megan Curtis (13:40.662)
you should go over to this spot and check this out and then just kind of send them on a loop through town.

Brandon Burton (13:44.441)
Yeah. Yeah, that’s great. And I’ve also heard even just the idea of teaching customer service. When you’re in an area where tourists come through, you want them to feel welcome. And the more welcome they feel, the more money they’re going to spend and the longer they stay there. So customer service is huge.

Megan Curtis (13:56.462)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Exactly. Exactly. Well, and even the folks that are pumping the gas, you know, if someone’s like, what is there to do around here? I mean, the first thing I would say is go see the cobra lilies. Yeah, well, we can now since COVID, they usually have a self-serve and a full service.

Brandon Burton (14:10.923)
That’s right. For those listening in Oregon, you can’t pump your own gas, right? Okay.

Brandon Burton (14:20.855)
Okay, I graduated high school in New Jersey and New Jersey is the other state where, you know, it’s full service gas station. So, yeah, it sure does. Yeah. So how are you guys promoting this pitch night? this, you trying to work with, I don’t know, best way of saying it, adults, more established, you know, people that have, you know, making their, their attempt at business. Are you working with

Megan Curtis (14:28.056)
Yeah, comes in handy in the winter, I’m not gonna lie.

Brandon Burton (14:51.125)
High school students, what’s your direction you’re going with it?

Megan Curtis (14:53.92)
It’s actually open to everyone. We’ll be serving food. So that’s usually a big draw around here. But we’re working with the Southern Oregon Regional Development Organization, SoReady, as well as the Southern Oregon Innovation Hub. So they’re promoting it to their members. We’re promoting it to our members. We’re just kind of cross promoting through those avenues. And of course, we’re reaching out on Facebook and social media to try to get the people that are

Brandon Burton (15:00.267)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (15:20.311)
Yeah.

Megan Curtis (15:21.57)
that are on there, but there’s a lot of folks out here that aren’t. And there’s a lot of businesses that don’t have websites. So we’re like, well, as a chamber member, we could put you on our listings, you know?

Brandon Burton (15:25.345)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (15:32.799)
Yeah, yeah, that’s right. So as a Gateway community, have you guys got all the gas attendees to figure out how to tell people to go downtown, to Main Street? It seems like that may be an uphill climb.

Megan Curtis (15:45.76)
Not yet, not yet. We’re sure working on it.

Megan Curtis (15:51.724)
Yeah, yeah. I don’t think the community was really focused on attracting tourists for a long time. I know that safety was an issue out here on the strategic plan from 2020. It’s a community-wide strategic plan that Illinois Valley Community Development Organization does about every five years. so public safety was the first priority and the last one in 2020. And we’re seeing that trend change right now.

and people are wanting the tourism dollars. They’re wanting to see the sense of pride that it brings in the community for folks to be like, wow, this is a really amazing place.

Brandon Burton (16:25.792)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (16:33.653)
Yeah, to share this amazing place you guys have built,

Megan Curtis (16:35.424)
Yes, storytelling is a big deal right now. People want to feel connected to a place. the way that we tell those stories is what’s going to make it memorable.

Brandon Burton (16:46.613)
Yeah, and there’s only so much you can do as a business if you’re relying on just the people that live there. The best way to grow that pie is to just make it bigger and, you know, let more people in. So that’s right. That’s right. Anything else to add to you about being a gateway community that maybe makes you guys a little bit unique or different approaches that maybe others don’t consider because maybe they don’t have to, but maybe it could be something that would be beneficial for them to

Megan Curtis (16:52.204)
Yes.

Megan Curtis (16:56.034)
Yeah, widen the circle.

Brandon Burton (17:16.289)
to know about or at least hear how you approach things.

Megan Curtis (17:17.758)
Yeah, I really think the stars out here are exceptional. I mean, you can look at a light map and see, you know, there’s a lot of people that can’t see the Milky Way from their home, and we can see that here. So I think being a gateway to the parks and the stars is probably our best bet right now. It is highly sustainable. It is responsible not just for the people, but for the nocturnal wildlife.

Brandon Burton (17:41.451)
Thank you.

Megan Curtis (17:46.242)
We have a lot of bats out here. Those fluorescent lights, it’s just, they don’t need to be pointing into the sky. We just need to direct the light to the ground instead of all over. So I think, I think it’s an important thing to remember that.

Brandon Burton (17:49.464)
Yeah.

Megan Curtis (18:05.482)
It’s connecting you to the cosmos, to the planet, to giving you a sense of responsibility that I can steward this and in a responsible way, bring in some extra astro tourism.

Brandon Burton (18:06.439)
and

Brandon Burton (18:20.887)
Yeah, I love that astro tourism. I think Elon Musk is trying to work on that too, is astro tourism and sending people to Mars, right? Yeah, I don’t blame you. No, I love that approach, though, just making it be a welcoming area for for visitors in general, but also to be able to make sure that

Megan Curtis (18:23.944)
Hahaha

Megan Curtis (18:29.492)
Yeah, well, in a different way. I think I’m going to keep my feet on the ground.

Brandon Burton (18:48.619)
those that are coming to experience the stars and the beauty, know, the milky way and everything the sky has to offer, making sure it’s retained and is a, you know, pristine place for the skies. I think that’s awesome.

Megan Curtis (19:03.33)
Yes, yes, I know I would love to do some nighttime kayak trips or paddle boarding Lake Selmak, know, like come see the stars tonight. But you’ve always got to have a plan B because it tends to get cloudy here sometimes. Everybody’s like, did you see that full moon or the lunar eclipse? I saw some clouds. It was pretty, know.

Brandon Burton (19:18.303)
Yeah, yeah.

Brandon Burton (19:24.471)
Not this time. Yeah, it sure lit up behind the clouds. Yeah, that’s great. Well, I like asking everyone that I have on the show, as far as any tips or action items for listeners who want to take their chamber up to the next level, what might you suggest for them as they work towards that goal?

Megan Curtis (19:31.106)
Yes.

Megan Curtis (19:49.562)
I, okay, so if folks aren’t already doing it, I highly recommend getting to know your elected officials and working with them hand in hand. Know your city councilors, your mayor, your county commissioners, your legislators, or even their field reps. You know, we work closely with the field reps for Wyden and Merkley here, especially with the park and they’re great, you know.

champions for Oregon Caves and the Chateau. They would really like to see it reopen as well. So I think it’s just really important that you start having these conversations now to build better identities and communities together so that you’re part of the conversation from the beginning, not coming in at the end like, hey, wait, we didn’t know about that. Or why didn’t you do it this way?

Make sure you go to the City Council meetings and just keep them apprised of what you’re doing and if you need any support from them. I think it’s really important just to build those partnerships. Working together is the only way to get it done. It takes a village to raise a village. So we all need to work on this together.

Brandon Burton (20:44.533)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (21:01.333)
That’s right. That’s right.

It reminds me of the quote that you need to dig your well before you’re thirsty. So building those relationships with your elected officials, you know, before you need something, before your chamber is, you know, fighting a battle or whatever it is, if you build those relationships, dig that well, put in the work before you need it, knowing that someday it’s very likely you will need to lean on those relationships and if nothing else, just to get their perspective.

Megan Curtis (21:18.678)
Yeah. Yup.

Megan Curtis (21:24.611)
Yes.

Megan Curtis (21:30.402)
Yeah, it’s very important even with the businesses. pardon me. It’s very important even with the businesses, you know, don’t go to them when you have an ask, when you need something from them. Like be there for them, ask what you can do for them. Same with the city, same with the state legislators, you know, same with the county commissioners. Build those relationships so that when you do have that ask, they’re like, we know who this person is. We already have a relationship with them.

Brandon Burton (21:35.444)
No, you’re good.

Megan Curtis (21:58.606)
We see the work that they’re doing. So yeah, we want to support them and what they’re trying to accomplish.

Brandon Burton (22:05.301)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I see it on, you know, with the podcast where I’ll have people reach out to me just totally random, you know, I see you do a podcast, I do editing and you know, schedule a call and I’ll show you how I can do you know, save you time and what I’m like, I don’t know the first thing about you. And then there’s there’s other people that will take the time to listen and the I really like this episode, what Megan said about the dark skies and you know, they, they bring out these things and then

Megan Curtis (22:23.022)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (22:33.043)
I’m more likely to listen to these people that show that they’ve they put forth the effort to show that they care about what I’m doing and it’s, you know, same way. So as a chamber, if you make those connections, build those connections so you can lean on them later if and when you need them. I think that’s a great tip.

Megan Curtis (22:39.117)
Yes.

Megan Curtis (22:48.706)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah. And when we align, you know, then we’re protecting the local identity, the unique charm, and making sure that folks know that that’s who we are.

Brandon Burton (23:04.811)
Yeah. Yeah. Dave Atkinson wrote the wonderful book horseshoes versus chess. And, in this, talks about how a chamber executive, he had, when he joined the chamber industry, it was explained to him that running a chamber is a lot like playing chess. You know, a lot of people think it’s more like playing, horseshoes where you come and you throw a horseshoe and if it gets close, then you get a point. He’s like, it’s really much more.

like playing chess where you have all these different pieces and they all can do different things. And leading a chamber, you’ve got your school district, you’ve got your elected officials, you’ve got economic development, you’ve got tourism. So they have all these different pieces, they have different responsibilities, and it’s up to you to understand the rules and what they can do and to help make those relationships work. So I think that.

Megan Curtis (23:46.402)
Yes.

Megan Curtis (23:54.691)
guess.

Well, and it’s always really important, you know, with the Illinois Valley Community Development Organization, with Main Street, Cape Junction, with the city and with the chamber, you know, we all need to have those meetings periodically and be like, okay, this is our lane. Like, this is what we’re focused on. This is your lane. Like, how can we not cross into each other’s lanes, but help each other through, like, support?

Brandon Burton (24:13.943)
Mm-hmm. Yes. This is my…

Brandon Burton (24:22.185)
Right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, Megan, also like asking everyone I have on the show as we look to the future of Chambers of Commerce, how do you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward?

Megan Curtis (24:36.75)
That is a great, great question, Brandon. you know, Chambers, I don’t think are going to continue to just be the resource hub, focusing on the small businesses. I think that it’s important that Chambers are part of that process of, you know, the brand identity, who we are, how we want to be seen, and convening those meetings, you know. So getting everyone together, deciding

Brandon Burton (24:47.447)
and service them. And I hope this work helps them in this necessary way.

Megan Curtis (25:06.094)
how we tell our story, how we, you know, because these stories are what’s going to help our local businesses, not just the chamber members. And then in helping the local businesses, you’re helping the people that live here. So I think that it’s really important for chambers to get involved and feel that partnership that shaped the future, you know, of your area, of your local businesses. But then also provide your business workshops and earmixers and

Brandon Burton (25:32.715)
Yeah.

Megan Curtis (25:35.726)
Our concert’s in the park. But it’s important in communicating your identity.

Brandon Burton (25:37.493)
That’s right. Yeah.

Yeah. I’ve heard it said that it’s easier sometimes in the chamber world to do addition than it is to do subtraction. You you’re constantly adding more and more things and the list gets longer and longer. And every now and then we got to do some subtracting too, you know, see what’s not serving us and, and, you know, where the trends are and really what’s, what’s making an impact. But yeah, I think that’s, I think that’s a great.

Megan Curtis (25:50.988)
Yes.

Yes.

Megan Curtis (26:03.916)
Yes. Well, and I think, you know, being realistic with your board is a really great start. You know, if you’re recruiting board members and you’re like, it’s only like an hour once a month at our board meetings. And what you’re really looking for is because I am a staff of one. I’m part time, part time. So I’m a staff of one. Yeah, exactly. So, you know.

Brandon Burton (26:26.997)
Yeah, we’re at a that never shuts off, right?

Megan Curtis (26:33.494)
being upfront with them through the recruitment process and being like, okay, so yes, we have these board meetings once a month. They’re about an hour, hour and a half long. But we also have concerts in the park through the summer every Thursday, you know, it runs from six to eight, but you know, I need folks that are willing to come volunteer for a few hours. You help me set up the cornhole boards, help me make sure the sound guy gets in and get the food trucks in their proper spots, that kind of thing. So I think

It’s really important for Chambers to be very upfront and make sure that the people that are volunteering for them know exactly how appreciated they are and the difference that they’re making.

Brandon Burton (27:14.677)
Yeah, I think that’s a great tip and great reminder. I appreciate that. Well, Megan, I wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information for listeners who might want to reach out and connect with you and maybe learn more about the Illinois Valley and just all that you have to offer there. Where would you point them?

Megan Curtis (27:18.264)
you

Megan Curtis (27:27.001)
sure.

Megan Curtis (27:31.688)
I would love that, absolutely. Please come see us, call me. So my phone number is 541-592-3326. And then I do have a rather long email address. It’s illinoisvalleycc@gmail.com. So yes, please come see us.

Brandon Burton (27:56.651)
Well, we’ll get those in our show notes so people don’t need to try to write it down while they’re driving. We’ll make it easy to find and link to it. Right. Very good. Well, Megan, I appreciate you putting aside some time to join us here on Chamber Chat Podcast and to share some of your experiences and the way you guys are approaching things there at the Illinois Valley Chamber of Commerce. I really just appreciate you being with us. Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.

Megan Curtis (27:59.191)
Yes.

Yes, no, don’t do that.

Megan Curtis (28:20.064)
Enthusiastically. We’re doing it enthusiastically with energy and positivity.

Brandon Burton (28:27.701)
That’s right. That’s right. But thank you for being absolutely.

Megan Curtis (28:29.792)
No, thank you so much for having me.